


Quirks do not equate to intelligence

by FanFiction_Artist_Prototype



Category: Assassination Classroom, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: 3-E hate Bakugou, 3-E love Midoriya Izuku, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Asano could you not, AssClass is old?, Assassination, Assassination Attempt(s), BAMF Midoriya Izuku, But he won't, Can we appreciate the fact that, Class 3 E (Assassination Classroom), Delinquent, Delinquent Midoriya Izuku, Everybody but Bakugou be drinking the respect Midoriya juice, Except Korosensei he's happy to kill him, Excessive use of the mental image of THE Picachu meme, Junior High, Memes, Midoriya Izuku Swears, Midoriya Izuku is a Good Friend, Midoriya Izuku is a Ray of Sunshine, Midoriya is loved by all, Midoriya was in 3-E, Midoriya went to Kunigogawka, Midoriya would like to murder a few people, Mistakes were made, Ms.Bitch may be a thot, Other, Protective Midoriya Izuku, Rivalry, Sassy Midoriya Izuku, Senpai-Kouhai Relationship, The Author Regrets Nothing, There be no BEGONE THOT memes for Ms.Bitch, Worried Class 1-A (My Hero Academia), but like, but she's a good thot, in the world of seasonal anime, what even are tags?, who doesn't?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-01-27 03:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 25,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype/pseuds/FanFiction_Artist_Prototype
Summary: Quirks do not equate to intelligence, Izuku could tell you that. He was an example of it, quirkless and in Kunugigaoka's A-class. A class filled exclusively(bar him) with kids with intelligence enhancement quirks.And then, third year rolls around and he's dropped from A-class all the way to E-class. But he doesn't care. He'd been shoved down, dragged through the mud and spat on all his life, and he'd always offered a helping hand to E-class before so he doesn't care.Many of his kohai's don't seem to care either.Once he's in UA he thinks it's time to push Kunugigaoka from his mind, put it into a little box and forget about the comments that hurt more than being called quirkless. Forget about being called a delinquent, a savage, being accused of every bad thing because he and his classmates hadn't fit the right image.But then, of course, the universe drags him back to his shit hole away from home, and he figures it can't get any worse until he spots the welcome wagon."Midoriya, it's lovely to see you. I thought you'd be too embarrassed to ever return.""That's Midoriya-senpai to you, Asano."
Relationships: Akabane Karma & Midoriya Izuku, Class 3-E (Assassination Classroom) & Midoriya Izuku, Kayano Kaede & Midoriya Izuku, Korosensei (Assassination Classroom) & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku & Everyone, Midoriya Izuku & Ritsu (Assassination Classroom), Midoriya Izuku & Shiota Nagisa
Comments: 298
Kudos: 2386





	1. Chapter 1

In hindsight, thinking the Stain incident was the worst that the universe had to offer him (given his track record) was an oversight on his part.

However, Izuku would like to state for the record, he had by all intents and purposes attempted to forget Kunugigaoka actually existed. The plan was to fake amnesia and/or being senile if the topic ever arose.

But that wasn't going to work with the current situation. Because the universe wouldn't simply cause him to visit, oh no.

He was spending the rest of the **_goddamn shitty fucking _**year there.

The universe was a**_ bastard _**and he wanted a rematch. Because he must of lost to the great beyond before his birth into this life for the actual mind **_fuckery_** that was going on.

There was defiantly a grudge being held against him because coincidence had **_fucked _**Izuku and promised to never kiss and tell so a grudge was the only answer.

"Aizawa-sensei, if I may ask, why is the government allowing junior high students to be in charge of this project to begin with?"

Iida's question is so funny to him, he actually chuckles to himself a bit and disregards the concerned look Sero shoots his way. 

It's funny, because why wouldn't the government let Kunugigoaka do what the **_fuck _**they want?

"Midoriya, you seem to find this situation funny. Care to explain." Aizawa has one of his brows raised in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. That's how he knows his teacher is concerned.

'_He probably thinks I'm finally having that mental break down.'_

"Sorry sensei," he rubs at the back of his neck, "I zoned out and remembered something."

His teacher doesn't believe him, but boo hoo. The conversation continues, explanations are given and then the kicker. They're helping kill someone.

They really want to sell 3-E's delinquent moniker don't they?

He doesn't mind, it just means he can be a bit looser when he gets back to the hell hole that was his junior high. After all, his kohai's and old teachers will know him as a 3-A student who fell from grace and became a classic 3-E student.

It'd be suspicious if he didn't act that way, and from what he's gathered they're going to be on the 3-E campus.

Oh doesn't he just love a good hike to school everyday? Been awhile since he's done that.

FUN.

* * *

They, for some reason or another, take a coach to Tokyo instead of the train. He won't question it though. Or at least he won't, until he checks his watch and happens to spot the street they're turning onto.

Deciding questions later are better than the next two hours in traffic he makes his way to the front of the coach, grabbing attention as he passes, "Sensei."

"What is it problem child?" Aizawa opens one eye, assess that he isn't dying and closes it again.

"What was the name of our hotel again?"

"Hibuki Inn why?"

"We'd be best walking the rest of the way from here, it's a twenty minute wall but a two hour drive."

That ridiculous time comparison has both eyes open, "What?"

"This part of town at this time," he motions out the window where the build up of traffic can be seen in its incubation stages, "It's a hell if you're in a vehicle. When I went to school here, traffic congestion was worst about now."

He sees the gears turn, and then he's being told to return to his seat as Aizawa checks it out with the driver who, as is expected, confirmed that they would in deed be better going on foot and he would drop off the bags when he got there.

"Alright, get up, we're walking the rest of the way." There's groans of complaint and his teacher throws him under the bus, "Midoriya knows this area so you can thank him for pointing out that our destination was within walking distance.

-*-

Once they get checked in, they waste time in the only way teenagers without their belongings can.

They loiter in the lobby and make the poor, old, elderly visitors cautious and cause them to quietly mutter about the youth of today.

Or, that could just be Izuku's paranoia acting up again. He's not too sure. "So," he's brought out of his thoughts by Kaminari, "How'd you know the area Midoriya? This is pretty far out from Mufasta isn't it?"

He hums, stalling as he tries to think of an answer that won't ruin all the fun, and surprises that will surely arrive with going to Kunugigaoka.

"I went to junior high around here, you get pretty used to the temperamental traffic."

"You came all the way out here for junior high!?" That grabs attention, and oh isn't that nice the elderly look a bit more relaxed now that they know they're talking about school and not uncouth teen vagabond things, from his classmates.

He scratches his cheek, something he picked up before junior high, dropped during and picked up again afterwards. It's a geekish way of showing embarrassment, relaxed and open.

He hadn't been allowed to act that way back then. Through first and second year he'd practically isolated himself. It was a fight for survival in normal terms in the school but to be a quirkiness student in a class made up of intelligence enhancement students?

He'd been fighting for his life the second he'd walked through the gate.

The only times he'd interacted with other human beings was when he helped other students with studying, or was asked to show the new kohai's around.

_(He remembered meeting Terasaka Ryouma, seeing the first year delinquent throw his bully weight around and flounder when Izuku - having spent most of his life around Bakugou- didn't even blink at the display. That had been the day Terasaka Ryouma first respected a senpai.)_

Third year had been hellish. At some point or another the school had put a 'no-quirkless in 3-A' rule in place. He'd of been happy to move down to 3-B, but the second it came out that the 3-A teacher didn't want him nobody had wanted to teach him.

Not until Yukimura-sensei had stood up and said she'd take him. She didn't care that he was quirkless, that her offer was a middle finger to her boss.

Yukimura-sensei was an angel, and someone Izuku aspired to be like when he became a hero. A kind shoulder to cry on, an understanding presence to take comfort in. Someone who you could rely on, and knew wouldn't be swayed by the views of others.

She was to him, what All Might had once been.

He'd realised, being in her class, that All Might wasn't some godly being that was perfect. And his type of heroism wasn't all you could rely on. But kindness, and perseverance even when everybody is against you.

That, that was what mattered and what made a person a hero.

He had originally wondered why his previous sensei had been alright with the assassination taking place in her classroom- he'd learnt that weekend she'd died near the start of that school year in a tragic accident at a part time research job.

That probably hit him the hardest.

* * *

The next day they get up bright and early, not early enough however to catch 3-E before they were roped into the baseball/basketball tournament.

Izuku felt pumped at seeing the event again, he'd loved it in previous years and even when he and his classmates had been the laughing stock in their exhibition match he'd just been glad to play along side his classmates.

All joy left when the welcome wagon arrived. Because of course, _of course_, the welcome wagon had to be Asano Gakashuu.

A grubby, little, bitchy ingrate like his father who had had a foot shoved up his backside from the day he crawled out of the womb. Because Asano was the kind of jackass natural genius who would be capable of crawling out of the womb.

The boy had the gall to smile at them, eyes a mere imitation of the bloodlust his father radiated. And that smile only grew as Izuku headed the group, having revealed that Kunugigaoka was his old school.

"Midoriya, it's lovely to see you. I thought you'd be too embarrassed to ever return."

He can practically feel the sudden drop in mood at the youngest words. In U.A. he'd normally stutter, apologise and try and promote himself instead of being walked over.

But that's an Izuku who can afford that. So, instead, he levels a glare (one he's proud to say causes a slightly flinch from his kohai) at Asano and makes no attempts to hide the venom from his tone.

"That's Midoriya-senpai to you, Asano."


	2. Chapter 2

Asano is still withering under his glare as he squeaks out, "Sorry, where are my manners? Midoriya_-senpai_."

"Yeah, I wonder where they went."

"Midoriya." He smiles brightly at Aizawa and swiftly apologises before jumping metaphorically right back into line. The switch baffles his classmates and unnerves Asano.

Good.

The little **_bitch _**deserved it.

But by now he's lost all interest in the welcome wagon, instead his attention is directed to the sounds of jeering, of yells intended to strip the current E-class to their core and ruin them.

It's the sound of a gladiator ring, and Izuku had almost forgotten it.

Someone mentions the cheering - cheering, that's what they call it. They call the yells of 'DOWN WITH E-CLASS!' And 'DIRTY CHEATERS!' Nothing more than cheering.

He feels his teeth grit. How oblivious the rest of the world was to their little world of hatred here at Kunuigigaoka. "It's the baseball and basketball tournaments today."

"Well remembered _senpai._"

He sends another glare, and now that the principal can't touch him- can't ruin him anymore than he already did when he was a student here- Izuku doesn't hold back.

He's not deaf to the insult in those three words. You'd have to be as stupid as he was being implied to be to miss it.

"From the sounds of it," he knows he sounds completely the opposite to his usual persona but heaven forbid he shows an ounce of humanity in front of Asano, "it's the exhibition match. What inning are we at?"

He enjoys the pain that stretches across his Kohai's face as he admits that E class hasn't forfeited yet. "It seems everybody's taking your year as a shining example senpai."

"Well you know how it is, Asano." He shoves his hands in his trouser pockets, "Kunuigigaoka really draws out the _competitive _spirit in people. It's no surprise that E-class are trying their best."

-*-

After his sinfully funny conversation/mental gymnastics tournament with the younger Asano he's left with questioning classmates, a too tired teacher and the exciting job of leading his group to the baseball pitch because apparently the girls basketball match is over.

But that's a lie when they approach the gym, them needing to pass it to get to the baseball pitch, and he stumbles upon a group of third years who immediately recognize him.

"Midoriya-senpai!" And like that he's got a bunch of girls bounding up to him, and miraculously he recognises all of them, bar one girl who reminds him of Yukimaru-sensei for some reason.

"Kataoka! Okano! How are you guys!" He smiles, because his kohai's were blessings. While E-class was ostracized school wide he'd had a good enough reputation before hand that only his year had intended on hating him.

And because of that his kohai's had been ever present with smiles and hesitant and nervous questions on subjects. He remember distinctly 1-A and 2-A student's coming for help from him even when he was E-Class.

"Senpai what are you doing- OH MY GOD IS THAT A U.A. UNIFORM!?" And then they seem to realise he's not on his own, "OH- U.A. STUDENTS!"

He hears a few nervous Helios, a few grumbles of complaint and turns his attention back to his teacher when Aizawa speaks, "If I remember rightly problem child, we're watching an exhibition match?"

"So the boys are still in?" And its like he never left as the (and wow he didn't expect any of the girls in 3-E to ever be in 3-E) 3-E girls huddle around him and mingle with his new classmates as they drag him to the field.

The arrival of 3-E students with a bunch U.A. students throws the general student body off their rhythm. He takes great pride when he's recognized.

* * *

Nagisa isn't a prideful person, but he's pretty proud of how he and the rest of E-class are holding up against A-class's brutality.

His attention diverts however, and thankfully so does the A-class', at the sounds of shrieks of excitement and 'U.A STUDENTS!' What really surprises him though is when a lone quarter of the viewing area is filled up, with mentioned U.A. students.

And then he's throw for a loop, as Karma whistles besides him drawing attention, "Looks like Midoriya-senpai did it."

And looking over he sees the one person, before Karasuma and Korosensei, who would look him in the eye and see that he was there, that he was a person. 

And he feels so proud of his senpai, as he stands there tall and happy among E-class students (once E-class always E-class. It had once been an insult now it sounds endearing) wearing a U.A hero course uniform.


	3. Chapter 3

Shouta watches as Midoriya changes once they're in Kunugigaoka's school grounds.

They're slight, minimal, shifts in behaviour but he notices them.

He sees how the boy holds himself a bit more tense (shoulders up, back straight) and he sees how the usual quite murmuring 1-A have gotten used to permeating the air is gone.

And instead the boy is hyper vigilant, eyes darting for a threat Aizawa is all to happy to face head on if it means Midoriya doesn't act like he's waiting to be attacked.

He'd heard rumours about Kunugigaoka, about its intense mental strain on its students. He'd read even more about its history in forgery and covers up simply by reading through Midoriya's file.

Kids in the bottom class didn't get perfect scores on entrance exams.

Nor did they get the scores Midoriya had actually been achieving in junior high. After looking into it, Midoriya Inko had paid for each and every exam her son had ever done in his third year to be remarked.

And each and every time he came back with tenfold the marks the school had given him and had consistently matched the top tier class mark for mark. If not higher.

And yet, he'd stayed in the bottomed class, and the school had put the grades they gave him -not his real scores- on his official reports.

He'd started to think Midoriya was just anxious to come back to his old school, this time no longer quirkless.

(_All Might was shit at keeping secrets and had folded immediately when he'd pressed him on the issue of Midoriya not having a quirk until way into his third year of junior high.)_

And then of course, _of course_, trouble had arrived. It had arrived in the form of a third year with a sadistic smile and a dangerously close imitation to bloodlust in his eyes.

At the sight of the boy Midoriya seemed to transform before his eyes and Shouta didn't like the connotations that came with the fact Midoriya felt he had to act like a delinquent in front of this boy.

_"Midoriya, it's lovely to see you. I thought you'd be too embarrassed to ever come back."_ the boys tone is icy, drawing upon the seedling of bloodlust in his gaze to turn it venomous.

And when Midoriya next speaks he isn't sure how it's taken him this long to pick up on it, because it's so strong, but when the boy speaks again it's drenched with a bloodlust he isn't even sure Midoriya is aware he has. "_That's Midoriya-senpai to you, Asano."_

And it's such an innocent statement, a senpai reminding their kohai to be respectful.

In normal situations that would be a joke. The two would laugh and go on to say how long its been since they've seen each other last. But this is far from a normal situation, and he can see the rest of his kids budding to know _who _is in front of them and where the hell was the Midoriya Izuku they knew.

He reels the problem brat in of course, formal introductions are made, and his class smiles or glares at the younger boy. It turns out he's the principal's son.

Midoriya scoffs at the word 'son' and at the scoff Asano flinched. It's almost missed, but the way his sweetest student raises a brow - like he and Asano are privy to a dirty little secret- makes sure he notices the action.

It's something he'll need to look into later.

And then he gets distracted by the sounds of a bloodthirsty crowd roaring to life. He can't make out exactly what they're saying but unlike his students he knows it isn't cheering.

The way Midoriya's jaw tightens at the word cheering suggest he knows exactly what's going on with the shouting.

He sighs to himself as they directed by the problem child, leaving Asano and promising to get that tour after the exhibition match, towards the chanting.

It's the chanting of a crowd wanting blood to be spilt, and the remainder of his class seem to pick up on that eventually. But Midoriya is unconcerned with the bloodlust permeating the air. The atmosphere of awaited death but be a regular occurrence here.

He wonders, not for the first time, what exactly is going on within the walls of this institution.

If anything though, the problem child lights up like a box of string lights. His mood picking up massively when a group of third year girls exit and grab his attention by calling out his name.

The plot thickens as Midoriya smiles and doesn't get flustered at the arrival of the girls, and he's seen this same boy get embarrassed with Uraraka.

The group, bar one, latch onto the once timid boy. It's almost touching to see him shift so easily into the senpai role. It suits him.

It's not so much touching as rather hilarious though as Shouta gets to watch 1-A lose their collective shit at Midoriya being not only more of a literal problem child than previously thought but also a 'babe magnet'.

It's like the problem child is in his element though and he completely ignores his classmates rather focusing on the younger students. It's a stark change to the chilly, hostile nature with which he and Asano regarded each other.

And when they finally watch the baseball match, he sees that this school is full of problem children because there are so many things wrong with this situation.

He doesn't even play sports and even he knows that there is no way the fielders can be that close to the batsman.

"Don't bother sensei," Midoriya has his full attention on the game, and so do the third years but he seems to know that he's about to object, "the only reason they're getting away with this is because the umpire will of allowed this behaviour from A-class."

He swears he hears Midoriya mutter something about biased bureaucrats but he isn't too sure.

He has a heart attack almost when two of the fielders have a bat swung inches from the tips of their noses, they're so close in fact that the hair of the red haired boy actually lifts from the air pressure, "GO ISOGAI! GO KARMA!"

The third years are cheering, but no voice is louder than that of Midoriya's, and when he catches sight of his pupils expression he finds himself smiling slightly.

There's such pride and admiration in his expression, a joy he hasn't seen before enveloping him.

People look over at then then, and he watches as mixed emotions flood people's face am it's the usual mix for seeing U.A. students:

Respect, awe,the uncanny widening of eyes and then...

Then there's an underlying shock as some people realise who Midoriya is and he bears the boys name be muttered.

And then it all comes crashing down as looks of disgust rain upon the oblivious boy. But that's incorrect, because he can see that Midoriya registers the looks from his once peers and he sees him ignore them.

Until a player, dressed in full baseball kit, calls out from the baseball pitch, "Shouldn't you be cheering for us Midoriya-senpai! Instead of these failures!?"

He isn't sure what he expects, but it isn't what comes out of Midoriya's mouth:

"And shouldn't you of pulled your head out of you pass by now!? All I'm seeing is a bunch of A-class **_flunkies_**!"

It's so...childish. Such a delinquent way of rising to the arrogant comment. He finds a grin spread across his face and quickly hides it in his scarf.

"You hear that? Midoriya-senpai is backing us. Not so big now are you 3-A?"


	4. Chapter 4

E-Class win the match, unfortunately the girls lost the basketball but they don't seem to mind. Izuku is just happy to see some of the teenagers he'd seen grow improve more and more.

He can also admit he laughed his head off, Bakugou actually having to drag him to safety because of how loud he was, when Karma riled up the crowd - pissing them off beyond belief.

He loves it, he absolutely loves seeing that the current E-Class don't care. This is their group, their family (and with all E-Class' it doesn't start that way but after awhile you learn about each other, you learn to defend each other and one day you wake up and its a family) and they're willing to give it their all.

He doesn't miss the trails of bloodlust hanging in the air though. They're faint, but hours spent in the Principal's office under his strict tutelage and supervision have allowed him to pinpoint it.

Remembering those sessions in third year make a shiver run up his spine. For all that the man hated E-Class, he seemed to want Izuku to succeed. Going as far as to say that if he got into his dream hero school it would be an inspiration for the other classes to work harder.

He'd almost given up on U.A. just to spite the man.

After the match the boys of E-Class go off somewhere and the girls follow. He presumes they're going up the mountain to get changed. He hopes he remembers the right path.

Unfortunately, and that truly emphasises his disdain for the older Asano, they don't have the younger Asano waiting alone for them. No, they have both of them.

He's given the younger a lot of shit, never to his face or behind his back but in his mind, but he can see that this was probably the better of the two outcomes that arise from having Asano-san as your father.

It was better for him to be a sadistic brat with a slight inferiority complex and daddy issues than it was for him to be a more openly traumatized little boy who cried all the time.

At least this way he wasn't the small fish being eaten, but it was at the expense of others so there was truly no happy medium.

He makes a point to stare at the younger Asano, while the older one talks. Graciously the younger doesn't act like he notices, instead taking the time to survey his classmates.

He's glad. The both of them have been on the receiving end of Asano-san's full bloodlust. He resists the urge to squirm, he isn't stupid he can feel the stare is upon him. He'd have to be stupid not to, the alarm bells going off in his head just confirm the fact that the man is staring.

"Midoriya, I'm glad to see you got into your dream school." He has to look over now. It'd be rude not to.

And the things is, no matter how much stronger he's gotten, no matter how much braver he is - he is terrified of this man. He is terrified of what he can do to him with a single locking of eyes. And he hates that the man knows that he's scared of him.

Because that gives him power, and that is the last thing he wants him to have.

So, with the sheer force of will that got him through E-Class he raises a mental barrier. Something he'd learnt from one of his E-Class classmates who had a mental quirk. The barrier is designed to keep his mind safe from the prodding and poking of the sick bastard in front of him.

He hopes it will work, as he meets Asano-san's eyes for the first time in nearly a year.

At once the bloodlust rushes into his system, it chokes him - tries to make his eyes water - as 'Submit' tries to work its way into his psyche. He released his own brand of bloodlust into his eyes, a retaliation (he feels sick when a sly and proud lilt encompasses the man's passive features.)

"Thank you sir." He wants to say more, but the mental fortitude it's taking to keep 'Submit' out is making his head spin. The quirk relents eventually and he refuses to show how fast his heart is pumping.

He notices a subtle shift in the way Aizawa holds himself, and when he addresses Asano-san he notices that there isn't any eye contact, indirect or otherwise.

From the looks of it Aizawa is pointedly focusing on the bridge of the man's nose. He knew his teacher was smart. He feels a shift to his right and, still keyed up from the mental drain seconds prior, he tenses up.

Until Uraraka is in his peripheral and she's smiling hesitantly, like she knows something isn't wholly right here. He's glad for that, which is why he lets her link their arms. If she notices that he starts leaning his weight on her to keep himself supported she doesn't mention anything.

-*-

"Sensei, can we talk?" He isn't sure what surprises him more, the manners or the fact that Bakugou is coming to him to talk about something.

But, Shouta knows he's got to listen, it's his job and if something is driving Bakugou so far from his pride encompassed safety net he needs to know. "Sure."

He opens the door to his room, letting the blond loiter for a few seconds before he comes in. Etiquette dictates he welcomes the kid to sit down, but he has a feeling now isn't the time for politeness.

"You felt it today didn't you?" He has a feeling what this is about but doesn't say anything, "That weird creepy feeling from Deku. That kid and his father had the same feeling..."

"I did. Why?"

He doesn't like the way Bakugou's features twist, "You know what that feeling is don't you sensei?" He doesn't respond, he isn't about to tell a kid what bloodlust feels like, "It isn't anything bad is it?"

Oh. He isn't...expecting the fragility of that last question. It's a gentle concern, one for a family member of a close friend - neither of which describe the relationship between him and Midoriya.

"Why do you ask that Bakugou?"

"Because Deku's had that weird feeling about him since we were kids."

_Well shit._

* * *

Izuku stands, smiling as brightly as he was yesterday, filled to the brim with energy. 

"WHAT!?"

His smile widens as he repeats what he just said, "We're working with E-Class, so every morning we have to climb this mountain to get to the old campus!"

He was originally hesitant to accept reclimbing the mountain, that last day when Yukimura-sensei got tarps and poured water on them most of the way down the mountain and let them slide down them on sleds was supposed to be his last time on the mountain.

But then the realisation that he gets to be away from Asano-san, and all the ungrateful brats in 3-A who forget that he helped them study time and time again in his last year, appears in his mind and he's never been happier to scale a mountain.

"You're kidding!? Why does E-Class have their own campus!?"

"Where else do you want them to stick the highly secretive monster that blew up the moon?" Aizawa just sounds tired, probably dreading all the dragging of petulant first years he'll be partaking in.

His smile drops though as he corrects his teacher, "Actually E-Class have always had the old campus as their classroom."

He looks over his shoulder, remembering the Class E pool March of death, and just barley spots the top of the building. "E-Class stands for 'End Class'." There is a new form of silence that settles then, "Its where students the school finds top difficult to manage, or don't keep up with the schools status quo or don't meet the right grade requirements go."

He pauses, looking back to his classmates, "It's also where people with undesirable quirks or no quirks go."

"Anything else we should know?"

"I'm not sure if it will apply to us, seeing as we're visitors technically, but E-Class can't use any of the main campus facilities. Including canteen, gym and library."

He's stared at, "Seriously?"

"Dude," he's already slipping into E-class mentality, and he laughs as he turns and starts jogging the mountain, "It's E-Class, the **_shitter_** they do the happier the Principal is."

He doesn't hear the reply clearly but Sero doesn't sound too pleased. But he ignores it as he sets a once familiar pace and makes his way up the mountain. His mind tries to drift to the deceased Yukimura-sensei and he shuts it down.

He's here to kill the apparently infamous Koro-Sensei. He's not here to sink into depression. That can wait, helping save the world cannot.

-*-

He's been at the top of the mountain for a while, it's ten minutes till class starts and he's still waiting for his classmates to arrive. He and Aizawa are the only ones at the top, the pro having band the use of quirks.

He can imagine the despairing faces of all the kids in his class with quirks suited to mobility. He doesn't really care though.

He gets to drill Koro-sensei and it's amazing, "Do you have a quirk? If so does it improve your agility or does that just come with your body's mutation? Is it a mutation quirk or do you come from a family with mutation quirks and this is a result of it?"

He has his notebook out and is writing down the happily given answers, he loves being able to just _ask _and not be judged for it. His pen moves a mile a minute as Koro-sensei just answers.

After his barrage is over with he taps the pen against his lips in an attempt to figure out what question he wants to ask, the creatures face changes colour while he thinks, green stripes starting to decorate his head.

Koro-Sensei starts going on about how he's such an interesting thing and how finally someone was taking notice. He turns to Nagisa and he's worried about how the boy is sticking close to his side. It's something he used to do a lot in first year but started to grow out of it in second year when he got close to Karma, it seems he's regressing and he wants to know why he seems to be losing confidence.

"Is Koro-Sensei always like this?"

"Yeah. The green stripes mean he's underestimating you. It's a sign of his ego."

"Hmm." He adds that to his notebook page, " Could I use your notes on him as well Nagisa?"

The boys startled expression makes him smile, "How'd you know I'd taken notes senpai?"

"It was a hunch," he taps the pen against his lips again, "you had a habit of emulating me, I figured in a situation like this your mind would link to my always taking notes. Am I wrong?"

Nagisa gives a shy laugh, Karma makes a comment about Nagisa always following him like a puppy and the bluenette retaliated. It seems he was wrong about Nagisa losing confidence. Nagisa confirms his hypothesis and they get to chatting.

He sees two other adults conversing with Aizawa and he nudges Karma and Nagisa to ask who they are. He'd ask some of the others but everyone seems content so he'll ask the ones immediately in range, "Who's that?"

"The guys Kurasama-sensei - P.E. teacher and government agent. I think he's supposed to be the case handler." Nagisa starts and Karma continues, "The blonde is Bitch-sensei. She's a professional assassin, femme fatale sobbing be surprised if she starts kissing you."

"Wait, Bitch-sensei? Don't tell me that's her-"

"YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY TO ME PUNK!?"

"OH YOU WANNA GO BLONDIE WELL THEN LETS FUCKING GO!"

He's cut off by the sound of explosions and cracking of earth and the roaring voices of Bakugou and Terasaka.

He runs out of the room, E-Class behind him, and to the front of the building where the rest of his exhausted class stand as Bakugou lets off explosions in his hands and gets into the younger boys face.

Terasaka opens his mouth in a snarl, vicious canines catching the light and looking like vicious knives. _His dragon mutation quirk will make him resistant to Kacchan's quirk_, he finds himself thinking.

If they were to fight it would be vicious. He can see Koro-sensei about to intervene but he'd rather be the one of the searing end of Bakugou's explosions than his junior or someone they don't know the abilities of yet.

(He wonders briefly if Koro-sensei has an adaptation quirk)

"Bakugou back off!" His shout surprises both boys enough for the aggression to be put on hold.

"Deku!? Stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong!"

"Senpai!? You know this clown!?"

He's ready to just curl up and let the fight happen, but no. So, he steps between Bakugou's lighter explosions, contained to his hands now he knows teachers are watching, and his kohai.

"Both of you stop it, he's a junior high student - you're invading his turf- don't pick a right with him. And you," he's never done anything stupider than turn his back on Bakugou Katsuki while he has explosions activated but here he is, "Why the hell are you picking a fight with a high schooler!? Did you just ignore me when I told you to pick your battles, huh?"

Terasaka has a good fourteen centimetres on him but you'd never know with the way the boy stands down, "He was threatening me what the hell was I supposed to do!?"

"Diffuse the situation! And if that doesn't work you run! It isn't cowardly Terasaka, picking a fight at the first sight of aggressive behaviour is!"

His comment is meant for the both of them and clearly Bakugou realises and so do his classmates.

"Oh God, Bakugou's pissed."

"He looks ready to kill Midoriya..."

He turns, expecting the explosive fist that comes his way, and is somewhat surprised at what happens next.

One, Aizawa shuts off Bakugou's quirk so the heat of the explosion never reaches him and two, the man (Karasuma he thinks...) grabs Bakugou's right hook mid punch.

He stares, as does Bakugou, at the man, this stranger who was willing to do that for him. The only people ever willing to help him this way before have been Aizawa and All Might.

Two people who have an obligation as his teachers to help him. This stranger is a God send though. Because the awe gives him enough time to move out of the firing line as Aizawa has to blink.

"Bakugou was it?" Karasuma's voice is harsh as he talks (but he can decipher the same hidden kindness that resides in Aizawa's voice), "while here at Kunugigaoka I will be one of your teachers, as such I have every right to punish you for attacking a student. Give me one reason to put you on suspension."


	5. Chapter 5

"Sensei..." he doesn't waver as Karasuma's head snaps towards him, eyes scathing as they tried to decipher his tone and actions. He was sizing him up, evaluating and assessing his risk value. Military then or ex-hero.

He gave his new teacher a once over, too stiff for ex-hero, definitely military. Special branch possibly- skills related to quirk or experience?

"Bakugou didn't mean for the situation to escalate the way things did." The air grows tense as he keeps eye contact. He can feel Bakugou's glower on him, feel everyone else's stares, "We've all recently completed heroics internships; we're all bound to be a little trigger happy so to speak."

He can see he's winning the man over, "Not that that excuses what happened, but we're all on edge and our meeting with principal Asano yesterday put my classmates all on edge."

He doesn't register his mistake (his classmates, not him. Outsiders- because he's always on edge here, always vigilant never stationary. But his classmates? They're a different breed here, weak blood. The blood sport will eat them alive and he'll stand there and piece together the scraps. Like every E-class veteran does) and keeps his eyes locked on Karasuma.

The ringing of alarm bells in the back of his head tell him that Bakugou is releasing his glower, taking the help for what it is for once.

He can think this is an insult all he wants later, but right now they both know Izuku's convincing nature is the only thing keeping him here and keeping him safe.

The pressure eases somewhat, and neither of them look away, "One more chance. Everyone in this group gets one chance and one chance only after today." He looks away first, out of respect for Karasuma.

He knows when to push an authority figure, and he's reaching his limits if he wants Karasuma to trust him to a degree. "U.A. may have divergent teaching methods but here in E-class we go beyond that. If you thought your high school lives were hell, think again."

He snickers to himself as the teachers (bar bitch-sensei, who he will be forced to call that until someone tells him her real name) including Aizawa make their way into the building, leaving them behind.

"Well, well kid. You've got balls." The blonde is almost upon him in seconds, and he feels a prominent void behind him saying Bakugou has gotten the fuck out of harm's way quickly. "Think you could tell me how you got Karasuma to do what you want?"

She winks, and he feels his skin crawl. It's an act sure, one that prays on hormonal teenager girls and boys and lets them get a taste of what flirting is, but it is an act all the same.

"So you're bitch-Sensei then?"

"Midoriya!?"

"Which one of you brats told him that was my name!?"

She pulls out a revolver, which he wasn't expecting, and starts pointing it at E-class, he can hear the sound of his classmates getting ready to fight. He simply raises an arm to the side, and there's a pause from behind him.

He has their undivided attention.

"You didn't answer my question, miss. If you've got a name you want to go by now'd be the perfect time to say." He drawls the words out because, Iida and his probably heart attack be damned, he's going to have _fun _screwing with both of these classes.

And there isn't anyone who can stop him.

"The names Irina Jelavić, kid. Jelavić-sensei will work fine -you seem used to these little bastard so I expect you to set an example."

She's lowered the gun and he glides his eyes to it briefly before nodding at her, lowering his arm and starting to walk back towards the school building.

Terasaka's expression is the first one he sees as he speaks again, "No problem, I can assure you I'll set the best example. Bitch-sensei." The look on his juniors face is brilliant.

As is the uproar from his class and from the teacher.

* * *

"Tell me, Aizawa, who was that kid?"

Shouta glanced past Koro-sensei (some of his students that were less concerned with self preservation would have a field day comparing his sleeping bag to the teacher) and to Karasuma. The officer was stood tall and stern but his features were of contemplation.

"Midoriya Izuku, alumni of Kunigigioka junior high. Fifth in his class, he was A class for two years here before serving his last year as E-class."

The yellow monstrosity next to him intersects, and Shouta is already tired of his peppy voice, "You make it sound like Midoriya was a prisoner in his last year Aizawa!" This guy reminds him of All Might for all the wrong reasons.

"You teach E-class, tell me I'm wrong."

"YOU LITTLE BASTARD GET BACK HERE SO I CAN KILL YOU!"

"Scuse me sensei's!"

It's years of heroics that allow him to get out of the way as Midoriya sprints down the shacks corridors, wild grin on his face (it's the look of a delinquent- something that surprisingly fits on Midoriya) as he's pursued by multiple e-class members who are all followed by Jelavić.


	6. Chapter 6

It had been itching in the back of his head all day, due to their questioning being cut short, and so as soon as lessons were over for the day Izuku was running to the E-class room.

Due to the differing age groups it was only natural that 1-A and 3-E would be in separate rooms, but it made it harder for him to reach Koro-sensei.

"Sensei!" He found the octopus in a rather comical position, crawled half way out the window the teacher was frozen with his never ending smile on his face making him seem even more awkward than the climbing out the window did.

"Yes Midoriya? Come to take an early crack at assassination?" He knew the question would arouse interest, and saw a few of his kohai's start to loiter.

"Unfortunately not sensei, Karasuma-sensei hasn't given us our weapons yet. I actually had another question, from this morning."

At the the teacher hoisted himself back in his room and brushed himself down before facing Izuku. It only slightly pissed him off that he couldn't read the minute tells of emotion on the emoticon face.

"Ask away."

"Do you have an adaptation quirk?" Taking silence as a chance to explain he continued, "You see, from what little I've read of Nagisa's notes and what everyone has explained to me you have enhanced agility, speed and logic. That could be explained as genius however, your body regenerates too quickly for your quirk to be anything but adaptation based. I'd say it's something along the lines of your cells analysing and genetically adapting to fit the situation. Like growing back a limb that is required for optimised survival."

He scratched the back of his head, and grinned trying to not appear awkward, "Survivalist at the least, what with your head changing colour potentially being linked to camouflage and that's a whole other can of worms- but I mean, this is purely speculative. I'm sorry if it made you uncomfortable."

"You managed to come up with all that from less than twenty four hours Midoriya?"

It was a little intimidating, the form of Moro-sensei towering over him with such a question. Because it made him realise he'd probably over done it on the analysis again. "Yeah, like I said it's all speculation. If I'm completely off the mark I'm sorry."

"No no..." the yellow face turned into a peach one with a red ring on it, "It was a perfect quick time analysis- and with such limited information! Truly the type of skill an up and coming hero and assassin would need! Unfortunately though," his face changed to show a purple X, "You didn't guess my quirk!"

"I wouldn't go that far Sensei, and like I said pure speculation. I just wanted to see if I could figure it out. Knowing something like that will be a key deciding factor in your assassination."

The head colour changed again, yellow with green stripes. Karma had said that was him being big headed didn't he? "Getting cocky are we Midoriya?"

"I wouldn't go acting so big headed teach," a heavy arm slung its way around his shoulders and he fought to not slump under Terasaka's extra weight suddenly on him, "You think Nagisa is bad, wait till senpai here gets you in his sights properly. He taught Nagisa everything he knows."

He grinned at his kohai, struggling due to the sudden affection of sorts. "He's exaggerating- Nagisa is plenty smart on his own. My analysis and mumbling _may _have rubbed off on him thought."

-*-

After chatting with Koro-sensei, Izuku was lead out by Terasaka to meet the rest of the younger boys gang of friends.

He could see that E-class were still in the baby steps stages of cooperation and class friendship. They were all little groups now, but by the end of the year they'd all be thick as thieves.

More so than usual due to their special circumstances.

"Yo, Teraska what took you- oh senpai. You joining us?" Muramatsu, Yoshida and Hazama raised their hands in greetings which he returned as they began walking down the mountain.

"'pparently." He shrugged and Teraska lifted his arm from his shoulder, in order to start motioning with both hands as he ranted about Bakugou.

"What a dick! I just- argh, you shouldn't of defended him senpai-"

"Don't forget he also tore you a new one Terasaka." Hazama's cut and dry tone had them all snickering, with Teresaka's quirk firing up as he looked about ready to spur fire in her face.

The ghast girl blinked, turning incorporal when the boy went to push her away from him. She sent a creepy smile his way as he pulled his fist from her midsection with only the words:

"Say that to my face Yūrei!" Before he went back to ranting, something they allowed to happen.

"I have to agree with this idiot though, senpai, why did you defend that other boy? He called you..."

A tense silence settled over the group as the name went unsaid. It was one thing in this Hell scape to be degraded, put down, and dragged through the mud. It was another to see it still continue even after you'd escaped and made a new life for yourself.

"He called me Deku. I know, he's called me it since childhood." He shrugged, " It's more of a nickname now than an insult. Everyone pretty much uses it, you guys can of you want to."

It was silent, and he felt like he'd missed something. Like he'd been gone too long, hadn't seen them in such a long time that he'd missed something- forgotten a boundary he wasn't allowed to cross.

But then the silence broke, "Why the Hell would we call you useless!? It doesn't matter if it's a nickname it's still an insult!" Muramatsu's voice broke at the end of his sentence sending the boy bright red despite the seriousness he'd been trying to convey.

And just as they all start to laugh he hears Uraraka behind him, sounding just the slightest bit out of breath, call out his name, "Deku! Hey Deku wait up!"

He stops, looking over his shoulder and his kohai's stop also, radiating delinquency vibes as the sunshine best friend catches up to their group.

(Uraraka is the sunshine best friend, and they'd both decided that Iida was the robot best friend, with him being the emotional one. They haven't thought of a nickname for Todoroki yet. He's still adamant on the thermostat best friend, but Uraraka and Iida won't let him suggest it.)

Uraraka seems completely unfazed by the aura the four third years are giving off, he isn't sure if it's prolonged exposure to Bakugou and his constant stream of death threats that have desensitized her, or if she just hasn't noticed yet.

It might just be the second option with how Tsuyu, Todoroki and Iida are hanging back a little.

Saying that, as is the rest of their class who are all streaming down the mountain in one long snake. (Shit, how close _are they _to the snake pit? He didn't ever remember exact locations he just always knew when to avoid it...)

"What's up Uraraka? Did you need something?"

The girl gave a huff, one that came from needing oxygen not from being exasperated, "You ran out of class really quickly. We wanted to make sure that... God why is this mountain so steep... to make sure that you were alright."

He gave a grin, something between his usual smile and his E-class smirk he knew the teachers had burned into their brains. "I'm good, I'm actually gonna hang out with these guys today. If you're heading straight for the inn could you let sensei know?"

It took a few seconds of him grinning and her blinking for Uraraka to figure out that that was the end of the conversation. But thankfully, just like yesterday Asano-san, she didn't press and instead gave a small smile.

"Sure! Have fun!" And then she turned to Terasaka, Yoshida, Muramatsu and Hazama with no hesitation, making him think it just might be desensitization, "I hope you four have fun as well! Let's all do our best to take down Koro-sensei!"

With a fist pump to the air, which all five of them hesitantly returned she was darting back to the rest of his friends. Turning back, he let out a strangled noise as Hazama yanked him close via an arm around his neck.

"Oh? Hanging out with us senapi? Not too old for us little kids now are you?"

"If you don't want me to-"

"Hear that boys? Midoriya is chickening out."

At the laughter that howled around him he felt his ears turn red. It was all in jest, and he knew that. It was just embarrassing. Before the junior high students could get going again though he'd escaped from Hazama's grasp and made a run for it, Count of Monte Christo in hand.

"MIDORIYA SENPAI WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU YOU'RE DEAD!"

"YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN SENPAI!"

"THAT SOUNDS LIKE CHICKENING OUT YOSHIDA!"

With that he turned back to face forward, slipping the book into his bag and starting to scale the trees. He'd taken to practicing jumping from branch to branch to better control full cowl at the park near his flat.

He was glad the practice was coming in handy.

He yelled however when he felt a hand grab him by the ankle and he unceremoniously found himself rolling to his backside on the floor.

Before him, were the teenager she had abandoned a few seconds ago. He wondered how they could keep up till he remembered Terasaka's enhanced agility and Yoshida's shifting quirk.

Hazama was sat atop of Terasaka's shoulders, with Muramatsu clambering off of Yoshida's back. "Damn...lucky I didn't have the book in my hands, it could of gotten ruined."

Hazama was smiling creepily, head tilted just a little bit too much to be normal for a human as she spoke, see ding shivers up all their spines, "If a single page is out of place or creased they'll never find your body."

"My mother tested me to have a good day today, so sorry. You'll have to wait on that."

-*-

Walking into the arcades in the small shopping centre that was a twenty minute walk away from the school, Izuku felt like he'd lost about five years off his age.

He'd never had time to come to the arcade in his first and second year and then sensei had been so strict about them staying after school in third year... 

It had just been so long since he'd stepped foot in an arcade that it was a rush of adrenaline in itself. "Over this way, guys, Karasuma-sensei said my aim was improving so I've got to christen the compliment by slaughtering you all in shoot out five."

He keeps to the back of the group, content to watch the three jostle each other and crowd the two player machine. Yoshida and Muramatsu are in deep concentration but still manage to sling playful insults at each other all the while.

He and Hazama stand back, leaning against crane machines. "Didn't think you'd be one for arcades, Hazama."

"I'm not." She looks at him from over the top of her book, "Someone has to keep these idiots in line though."

He smirks, "They ever give you more hassle than you can handle, or can be bothered with I'll put them in their place."

She laughs, it's small and quiet. He realises it's one of maybe three times now he's heard her laugh over the two years he's known her. "And here we all thought Terasaka was your favourite."

"..." He doesn't answer straight away, he just likes the companionship he has right now, "I don't have favourites. But I do have a least favourite and its Asano."

She doesn't laugh this time, but Hazama gives him a delinquent-esque smirk in return and dives back into her book just as Yoshida cheers and causes Terasaka to roar as he nearly smashes the toy gun into the tallers nose.


	7. Chapter 7

"Welcome back Midoriya." He kept his face neutral as he entered the inn, spotting Aizawa leaning against the entrance way wall. His teacher didn't sound annoyed, just tried so he didn't think he was in trouble.

"Hi Sensei. I didn't overstep any curfew did I?" He watched his teacher survey him and he found himself going tense.

Aizawa had never done that before. Had he gone too far today? Had he given his teacher some kind of reason to distrust him? If he had he wanted to rectify it.

Aizawa-sensei was one of two teachers who had ever truly treated him like a person. He'd be devastated if something had happened to change that...

"You're fine Midoriya, I wanted to chat with you though. Follow me." His teacher stalked off into the lobby area and cautiously he followed. Sitting down on a couch across from his teacher he resisted fidgeting.

"Did I... did I do something wrong sensei?"

"Do you think you did something wrong?" An eyebrow was raised at him and it made him feel even more fidgety.

"Things are different here sir... than back home," he looked down at his writhing hands in his lap, "There are rules here that I might of forgotten... E-Class has a hell of a lot more rules than everyone else."

They sat in silence for what felt like hours but looking at the clock it had only been two minutes. Then, a sigh. "Actually that's what I wanted to talk to you about Midoriya."

He glanced up at his teacher, feeling his mouth go dry at the look that greeted him. He felt cornered, on edge and almost unwilling to talk, solemnly he nodded.

"Okay. So, Midoriya, what did Asano-san do to have you so terrified of him?"

"It's that obvious?" He snapped his mouth shut immediately after the words left his mouth. Staring wide eyed at Aizawa he watched as his sensei's expression morphed from collected to rage filled.

"Midoriya, what did he do?"

Shaking his head Izuku put his hands over his mouth. Shit, shit, shit, shit!! What had he just said!? Sure, Asano-san was terrifying but that made everything sound worse that it was!

Sure, the system was fucked but the government didn't give a damn about it so clearly it was bad but not to the point where anyone was going to do anything about it.

And sure, maybe after having spent two years being stomped down into the mud to have the head master of his school personally tutor him because he 'believed in him' was suspicious. And yeah maybe it was illegal to use your psychologically harming quirk on young minds but it was fine right?

It wasn't right, sure, but again the government knew and they didn't care.

He was lying to himself.

Damn it, lying to himself didn't even work. If he lied to himself it meant he was making everything his senapi's before him had endured mean nothing, and he knew it meant what his kohai's were going through (_Hell be damned what Asano fucking junior was going through_) right now would seem like it meant nothing and that wasn't right.

But... He couldn't put it into words. He couldn't... you just didn't explain Kungiowka junior high.

You lived it, and you either died along the way or you came out a starved animal. For better or worse.

"Midoriya...? Midoriya what did he do?"

A bubble of a laugh broke from his throat, "What did he do? Sensei he runs his school so that there is a group of students who are third class citizens." He laughed again,"The entire damn school is filled with bloodlust because we- they're all ready to rip each others throats out to survive."

"That doesn't answer my question Midoriya." He felt his hands shake even more in his lap, they were twitching for something to grab onto, something to attack, something to drive the fear away, "What did he do to _you _that makes _you _so scared of him."

"That's a loaded question Sensei."

"I have time." From the conviction in Aizawa's voice, he'd make time if he didn't have it.

"I was...until second year I was in A class. Then when I got to third year I got dropped to E class and Asano he... He decided to try and make me a 'redemption case'..." he felt his finger nails digging into his palms, "Constantly he'd tutor me during free study periods... I hated them. It was like emotional torture..."

"How so?"

"He'd force me to make the treck down the mountain and I'd be so tired and-and so scared of all the snakes and the bee's and fucking boulders that when I got to his office I would be _glad_." He seethed, "And then I'd be so glad to just not be outside that I wouldn't care what happened as long as I was somewhere not outside."

"And?" He knew Aizawa probably was thinking along the lines of physical or sexual abuse, but thankfully he supposed those were two areas that Asano didn't extend his punishments to.

"And then he'd use his _fucking_ quirk on me." He didn't particularly care that he was cursing now, and his hands slid to his hair resting in it not tugging just yet. He'd caught a glimpse of blood on his palms from his peripheral, "Every time I got one of his stupid university level questions wrong he'd just use his quirk to drill it into me how stupid I was."

He grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut as a memory of the shadowy office and Asano's glowing eyes boring his quirk into his mind overflowed his senses.

He was fourteen again, newly entering the proper teenage years, and sat in a hard backed chair in Asano's office.

The man stood behind his desk, a sadistic smile on his face as he taunted him, told him that as an A-class flunkie he expected better, that clearly he'd be cheating for the past two years because how couldn't he get ALL these university level questions right?

He flinched as he remembered the slam of his head against the floor as he'd felt non-existent bugs crawling through his eye sockets into his brain and he hadn't been able to handle it anymore, hitting the floor as he lost the will to stay upright.

His back burnt where a blazing summer sun hit his back as he trudged down the mountain, his lip split as a worried lip finally gave way as his paranoid mind finally gave way into thinking that maybe Asano was right.

Maybe he was a liar and a cheat and maybe he should stay where he belonged - <strike>**_A USELESS QUIRKLESS DEGENERATE WHO WON'T GET ANYWHERE IN LIFE. WHY WOULD ANYONE LIKE HIM GET ANYWHERE? HE WAS E-CLASS NOBODY ACCEPTED E-CLASS AND HE WAS QUIRKLESS. QUIRKLESS WAS A DEATH SENTENCE AND HE WAS CLEARLY JUST A SHAM THINKING HE COULD EVER RISE ABOVE HIS PREDETERMINED RANK IN LOFE AND MAYBE PRINCIPAL ASANO WAS RIGHT AND HE SHOULD JUST QUIT JUNIOR HIGH AND NOT BOTHER ANYMORE. UA WOULD NEVER WANT SOMEONE LIKE HIM..._**</strike>

And then he was back on the couch in the inn and he couldn't breathe- he couldn't breath- he couldn't breath- he couldn't breath and oh God he was back in the office and he was being suspended and no- he can't afford to be suspended!

If he's not here he can't act as a buffer for his classmates- nobody else will bother to keep them safe - he can't miss that much work and <strike>_**NO! NO YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND HE ISN'T STUPID HE KNOWS HE SHOULDN'T HAVE HIT THAT BOY BUT HE WAS TRYING TO-**_</strike>

<strike> _ **NO!NO HE ISN'T STUPID! HE'LL DO THE STUPID TEST JUST DON'T SUSPEND HIM!** _ </strike>

<strike></strike>"Midoriya!" He blinks at Aizawa.

Aizawa...right.

UA.

High school.

Aizawa sensei had been asking him about... Yeah.

"It was too much." Is all he gets out as he finally curls into a ball, still unable to breath.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (Shameless self promotion, but I don't really care this time? 
> 
> Please go read my story 'Fight On!' It's a BNHA story with a crossover with the manga/anime Gokusen. You don't need to know Gokusen to understand the plot bc I pretty much cover everything you need to know in the first few chapters.
> 
> The basic premise is that as a young child Izuku Midoriya goes to live with his 'Oji-san' who happens to be the head of a Yakuza group. From there he becomes a quirkless student at UA with his 'mysterious' protector looking over him quite due to a slew of normally unrelated events)

Ochako stalls at the end of the corridor when she sees Bakugou leaning against the wall, shaking with a hand over his mouth. The kind part of her says she should help, the rational part says she should get Kirishima because he probably won't get blown up.

However, the kind part wins out.

"Bakugou?" She doesn't say his name until she's right in front of him and red eyes that are blown wide in fear look up at her before dragging her to the wall next to him and covering her mouth with his other hand.

She goes to protest until she hears hyperventilating on the other side of the door they're next to.

Aizawa's voice follows, trying to calm someone down and she's worried for whichever classmate it is and tries to fight off Bakugou's grip to go help but the look the blond sends her has her frozen. It's so lost, so dejected that she doesn't dare move.

"Midoriya breath, c'mon problem child copy my breathing."

A million possibilities swarm through her mind at the confirmation that its Deku who's having what sounds like a panic attack. The most recurring idea is that E-Class did something.

But that thought is pushed away all too quickly. That's falling for the trap Izuku had explained to them at the bottom for the mountain. E-Class were supposed to be delinquents and horrible people she couldn't just assume.

She couldn't, even if the way Deku had been acting today made her think maybe it was true. Because she'd never seen Deku act so... disrespectful? No that wasn't the right word but... she just couldn't think of what the right word was. But it was delinquent-esque enough for the idea that E-Class was a bunch of delinquents to make sense.

"Sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Kid, calm down, don't apologize just focus on my breathing. You don't need to apologize."

"But- I-" she could hear Deku getting himself worked up again, "I'm causing you trouble!"

"You're having a panic attack Midoriya, because you're remembering trauma - you're not wasting my time."

"But-"

"Breath with me, after you're calm you can blame yourself all you want and I'll tell you my you're incorrect all over again."

She feels like she shouldn't be here, she shouldn't be listening in. But... but poor Deku he's having a panic attack and she's hopeless to do anything...

"Round cheeks..." her eyes dart over to Bakugou who looks like yes collected himself. He knows why Deku is having a panic attack, she can tell from his eyes and she wants- no needs to know. If she can prevent it in the future then that's her duty as his friend- "I saw Deku leave his phone in his room this morning, go grab it."

"When- why did you see him drop it?!" She keeps her voice low but what the hell!?

"Because that freaky aura he had yesterday put me on edge so I made sure to watch him today. Our rooms are literally across from each other I saw the phone next to the futon."

"I'm not going to steal Deku's phone-"

"He'll have those shifty extras from today on his phone," she pauses her rebuke, "Its...it's to do with the shitty school, they should know."

"Okay." She wants to ask why Bakugou cares, why he's doing this because surely it can't just be fear right?

The thoughts are pushed aside though in order for her to run down the hall to Deku's room. She'd been going to visit him anyway, he seemed to of understood the homework Miss Jelavić gave them. Present Mic was a pretty eccentric teacher but he had nothing on Jelavić-sensei.

Ochako couldn't believe herself that afternoon when the first few English phrases they were introduced to were sexual questions. Sure she understood that if you wanted to _really _learn a language you had to learn the weirdest and most uncomfortable questions and words but still!

She hadn't wanted to turn to Todoroki and ask him if he was a virgin in English! And then have to ask the class if anyone had ever gotten black out drunk!?

What kind of situation was that preparing her for? Ochako didn't intend on ever getting so drunk that she woke up in a different country, why did she have to learn to say 'Sorry I got super drunk last night and now I'm not in Japan where am I?' in English!?

She finds herself at Deku's room pretty quickly. His room isn't even locked, and she's worried until she spots the hover inside the room. Peeking inside she sees one of the members of staff she'd spotted this morning.

"Excuse me?" The lady turns her head, "My friend needs his phone could I grab it quickly?"

"Of course dear." There isn't anything else said and she nods her thanks before grabbing Deku's phone and making her way back down the corridor. 

It's now that she's glad Izuku had told her, Iida and Todoroki his oh one password for emergency situations. Putting the code in quickly she ends up nearly knocking into Momo who she quickly apologises to before rushing back to near the entrance.

Bakugou is still in the same position as when she left but he looks more impatient. She must of taken too long.

"How are we doing this?" She feels terrible, but it's an emergency. Deku's having a panic attack and its related to the junior high they're at. If it's a potential danger to the students then they should know.

Besides, she'll tell Deku what she's done. She isn't going to pretend she didn't get his phone without permission.

"Look through for a contact starting with N, I think the quiet blue one had a name starting with N."

Looking through the contacts she finds 'Nagisa', and instead of doing the logical thing and texting the information she phones the number. Bakugou's eyes nearly bulge out of his head but when one of the boys from today answer she ignores him.

"Senpai? Do you have more questions about Koro-sensei?"

"This is Nagisa right?" She walks a bit away from the door and Bakugou is a few steps behind her, she hears nothing on the other line for a few seconds before the boy responds.

"You're one of the UA students right? Which one are you?"

"Uraraka. I'm phoning on Deku's phone because he's having a panic attack," she can hear Nagisa start to quick fire questions but she pushes onwards, "and one of our classmates overheard him explain the cause. Apparently it presents a danger to you and your schoolmates."

"And you're phoning to let us know this threat?"

"Yeah," she tells Nagisa to wait a second before pushing the phone to her chest to muffle it, "Are you going to tell them Bakugou? Or am I?"

"I'll do it."

She gives Nagisa a warning that the speaker is changing before Bakugou starts explaining and she feels herself turning sick as he explains how Midoriya had started going off on a tangent about the emotional manipulation caused by Asano-san, about how he'd use his quirk on him if he didn't reach his expectations- about how he goaded and humiliated Deku for no reason other than to crack him and manipulate him more.

-*-

Shouta feels his body build up with rage as Midoriya shakes and cries and tries to yank his own hair out.

Over the past two days Midoriya has shown a lot of faces; 1-A Midoriya who's a well to do collected student, Midoriya Izuku who's a senpai adored by his kohai's who even has the respect and confidences of those that don't particularly like him, 3-E Midoriya who was a delinquent child through and through and then this Midoeiya.

Scared, fragile Midoriya. The kid who called out for help, but nobody came.

"Midoriya..."

He kept his body steady as he remained crouched in front of the boy, hoping that he could act as some kind of emotional support. "Midoriya, I hate to ask this but what is his quirk?"

"...I don't even know. We all just called it 'Submit'..."

"We?" Midoriya flinches.

"_My E-Class_." The words are spoken in such a way that Shota hears 'my family' rather than my class, "My friend Yutto had a telepathy quirk and that was apparently what Asano-san referred to his quirk as."

Shouta feels more anger at that. That a child had to use their quirk to find out any information about something that haunted them.

"It gets into your head... makes you feel... makes you feel like _everything _you've ever done is wrong- like you're not capable of doing anything right... and then when he speaks it just- it just feels like - like what he's saying is the only thing that's right."


	9. Chapter 9

Everyone is constantly telling Izuku he's pretty damn intelligent - His mother who's biased constantly tells him, his friends tell him who are again biased, his Junior high for the first two years drilled it into his head that he could not afford to be anything less than exceptionally intelligent and they don't let slackers into UA (meaning even if Kaminari is struggling he's still highly intelligent.)

So with everyone always telling him how intelligent he is, he loathes to find out the knucklehead who told 3-E to act like mother hens around him.

Sure, he was shaken up from last night but there's no need to near suffocate him. And how did they even know something had happened? The simple answer was someone had told them, meaning some one had phoned them.

He'd checked his phone and sure enough there had been a call log, then Uraraka had come forward and told him.

Which yeah... it was cool that she was looking out for him but really?

3-E would know what a bastard Asano was, it was impossible to not have been on the receiving end of his vile torture. Every 3-E student had to go see the head teacher in his office when they were informed of their dropping to the E-class. Everyone would know the feeling of 'Submit' but fortunately most of them would put it down to nerves.

Asano didn't usually use his quirk all that much. He used it on people he knew he could twist and bend and hopefully break and turn into his own fun house mirror version of them.

He was a vile man...

But still. He didn't need to be treated like a baby. He'd put up with the 'trauma' of the whole event for the past few months perfectly fine he didn't need the baby assassin's giving him the old man treatment.

However for the most part the day went as normal. 

Everyone got flustered by Ms.Bitch who had seemed to accept after the first day he was going to call her it without fail - the blonde had even explained why she had the name and he'd loudly affirmed to her he now had even more of a reason to call her it.

(She'd demanded to know why, in front of the entire class and Izuku...Kami...Izuku's classmates were too soft. Too naive, they still thought the greatest evil lurked on the other side of the battle ground.

It never occurred to his classmates that the worst monsters lived in the crevices in society, waiting to split the supports of the pillars of society like education and law and through their exploitation and gaslighting of students and forcing torturous conditions to be a normality had subjugated people were the norm.

He couldn't tell them, they wouldn't understand. Hell, he feared they might even agree.

So, he'd switched to English. He was relatively advanced, having been an All Might fanboy for so long it would be peculiar if he wasn't, but most of his class were mediocre at best. 

"I used to be one of them. Your words applied to me and my class once."

Ms. Bitch had looked at him, really studied him, before snorting and responded in English, "If you're in UA I guess I'm wrong then. This class just might amount to something after all."

It was said so crudely, so candidly Izuku figured it was supposed to ruffle his feathers. But Ms. Bitch hadn't accounted for the fact that despite she and Aizawa being polar opposites they both shared one singular trait.

Their encouragement and pride hidden behind light admonishment and sarcasm.)

Training still happened, they'd cut the PE field in half, 1-A would practice hand to hand in pairs with a distinct lack of quirks because Kunigowka didn't have U.A.'s privileges of using quirks whenever they wanted.

Then half way through the lesson E-Class would swap with them and they'd learn hand to hand with Aizawa (getting their backsides kicked because with Karasuma it was all stone cold military precision but with Aizawa it all depended on what angle the fucking sun ray that had awoken him was at to determine what fighting style he'd be using) and 1-A would learn basic gun safety and basic knife stances.

Izuku himself had never actively carried a knife but his friend Yutto had, and had taught him a few ways to use them because if there was one constant in Izuku's life besides his quirklessness? It was getting into fights to protect others.

And while on school campus the main campus boys and girls may be sweet little angels, you had to remember 3-E came from the same brood.

They were just as, if not more, willing to get their hands dirty to make themselves feel superior.

But because of this, Izuku felt comfortable pretty quickly into the basic training. He'd spent hours before watching Yutto use his blades like Hana had used her fan in her traditional dancing.

Gracefully, poised and with a determined track only the victim and the perpetrator could see.

(He wondered how Hana was doing... She'd gotten a scholarship to a dance school at graduation, a school that was top far away to fall under Kunigowka's influence. Izuku always thought she was an amazing dancer he wouldn't be surprised if she was already rocking the traditional dancers scene.)

Or at the least, training had been going well until they'd swapped again and been asked to watch a demonstration. The demonstration hadn't been the issue.

Isogai and Maehara were impressively adept at the blade - Yutto had been practicing kendo stances for years and that had helped transfer over to his wielding of other blades- without any prior experience in blade wielding.

The demonstration, with 3-E training in pairs and awaiting their chance to ambush Karasuma all the while in the background, was insightful enough if you watched closely. You'd spot that Karasuma never went on the offensive, simply redirecting his opponents attacks so they'd clash with their partners.

He'd seen Aizawa use a similar deflection style before.

Everything had been fine, bar the mishap with Nagisa suddenly releasing a shittonne of bloodlust sporadically and attempting to take Karasuma down with such an intense aura that the agent seemed to forget it wasn't a real threat.

It had felt like a real threat from where Izuku was sat near the back of the group watching he could only imagine what Karasuma felt.

Unlike with Asano's bloodlust which felt like bugs crawling through every orifice on your face, like bugs which blocked up your airways and ate your eyes whilst you tried to look away, making the last image you saw before you finally gave up be of Asano and his smug grin as the bastard smugly enjoyed the torture he inflicted, Nagisa's blood lust was...cleaner.

Tense, hidden but just noticeably there, and poised to strike. It felt like a constricting force - a snake perhaps- trapping you and taunting you with a flash of its fangs before it snapped its jaws closed with you in the middle.

But even that hadn't been the issue.

No. No, no, no. The issue came in the form of Takaoka Akira, Ministry of Defence Agent who made Izuku's skin crawl the second he saw his smarmy expression.

Nobody smiled like that and meant it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long guys! I was taking a detox from the internet and then I got sucked into the Fire Emblem fandom again but that doesn't matter!
> 
> Also, quick question! I know one person is, but who'd be interested in a 3-E reunion, but Midoriya's 3-E? Yutto, Hana and the rest of the delinquents that made Midoriya's third year tolerable??
> 
> On a related note, who'd like flashbacks with Midoriya's 3-E?? Like Midoriya kicking ass with his worried sick classmates joining in or patching him up? Or even a class of 'rejects' and 'troublemakers' filling the entire front row and cheering obnoxiously loudly for Hana at a traditional dancing competition?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also this is split I'm to two parts bc this is pretty long, for me at least.

It isn't just Takaoka's smile that sets off alarm bells in Izuku's head, it's the way some of E-Class subconsciously react to his presence and obviously fake positive front.

Most of their forms seem to tense without thinking and he spots about three of them tighten their grips on their weapons.

For Kami's sake, Nagisa takes a step back when the guy comes near his general direction. Takaoka didn't even look at the blue haired boy and he'd taken a step back. It was almost morbid the way Nagisa's relaxed form curled up in on itself like a crab in its shell; a frightened fawn hiding from a predator.

This was the kid with potent enough bloodlust to convince a trained government agent he was going to be killed. That shouldn't be happening.

Izuku had only seen it happen once before, which had been the only time he'd been to the Shiota apartment. (Kami he hated Nagisa's mother.)

Even when Takaoka tried to be inviting and encouraged both classes to indulge in his 'gifts' 3-E were hesitant.

"Are these expensive goodies really for us?" Isogai had held back and only one or two students had been brave enough to go unpack the surprise indulgences.

His class had no such qualms and Uraraka and Mina lead the charge on opening up the expensive cakes, "This is from Le Hérmes! Mina a box of these costs more than my monthly rent!?"

And when the older kids started the younger followed. He felt annoyed at himself for being so cynical, maybe he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. 

But there was something... _something _about the way Takaoka grinned that set him off. It wasn't a normal grin, and for the life of him Izuku couldn't place it.

He still held to the back of the crowd though as the agent sat himself down and spoke with jubilation, "But don't get the wrong idea... it's not like I'm trying to bribe you guys... I just want to get to know you quickly. What with there being two classes and all!"

The man had taken a cake and seemed _so _genuine that if Izuku hadn't had doubts he never would of formed them, "And eating together is the best way to do that!"

Everything seemed so...natural.

Izuku refused to join the main crowd and stayed on the outskirts, thankfully Aizawa didn't bother him and instead stepped closer- from an outside perspective it would look like they were involved in conversation which he was sure was not accidental, watching as everyone just seemed to get along.

Even Bakugou seemed mellow, not shouting or raging but instead opting to quite 'tch's occasionally and eye rolling with the word 'dumbass' spat _playfully_ instead of as an insult.

It took everything Izuku had to not think that he was being paranoid, that he should ignore the alarm bells in his head. Because despite the subconscious reactions nothing seemed to be setting anyone off about Takaoka - even Terasaka's gang were begrudgingly indulging in the sweets. 

But he couldn't relax, couldn't shake the feeling of _wrongness._

Karasuma had looked spooked when the other arrived. Why the hell was Takaoka smiling fake smiles, spewing half-arsed pleasantries and spooking Karasuma?

The constant semantics of 'family' also left a bitter taste in his mouth. Izuku already had a Dad and two father-figures, he didn't need Takaoka trying to fill a non-existent void that Izuku didn't want him going near.

"Midoriya what's-" Aizawa looked pensive, and if he was bold enough to say it Izuku would say his sensei looked downright agitated, but was cut off by Uraraka.

"Deku! Come try these sweets they're _so good!_"

"Uraraka is right Midoriya, you should come and indulge with us! I am sure that your strict diet will allow for a slight diversion occasionally!"

His best friends beckoned him over, Iida's hand movements at full force and unfortunately the unwelcome agents attention was bought up by his nickname; Izuku swore he could see the gears turning in the guys head at the meaning behind his name.

3-E's passive aggressive reaction to the nickname probably didn't help.

"Oi! Deku if I'm fucking trying to be sociable- your nerd 'power of friendship' ass can do the same!"

He wondered how Bakugou hadn't picked up on the bad vibes Takaoka was giving off but a quick meeting of eyes told him the other had, and he was simply playing along.

That was a good idea actually. No need to let the guy know that Izuku or Bakugou knew anything was off. Bakugou had a nose for smelling bullshit a mile off, no wonder he hadn't been fooled.

His acting was getting better though, Izuku had seriously thought he'd been hoodwinked.

Forcing a laugh that sounded horribly fake even to his own ears, that could hopefully be played off as mental exhaustion from the night before, he made his way over to where Uraraka, Iida, Tsuyu and Todoroki were mingling with Maehara and Isogai.

Which was an odd mix to be sure but he assumed it was Iida 'I can locate student authority like a bloodhound' Tenya doing what he did best and the other three just following the assumed leader of the group's well lead. Everyone always seemed to assume that he was the leader of the friendship group but it was obvious to everyone in the group that Iida was the 'alpha friend's as Tsu had dubbed it.

Takaoka patted the ground next to him as he approached and Izuku had to resist outwardly cringing as the invited seat would put him close enough to his friends to not make it obvious he was being singled out. Definitely something wrong with Takaoka.

"_**Deku**_ was it? That's an interesting name kid!"

The way his nickname was said made it sound exactly like the insult it used to be, such contempt hidden behind a thin veil of curiosity made it clear Takaoka knew exactly what he was doing.

Sitting himself next to the agent he attempted to not snarl through every word, "My name's Midoriya Izuku, Deku is an alternative reading of my name sir." He tested out the form of address to test the waters and wasn't surprised when the man sat up a bit straighter at the 's how of dealer's, "All my friends call me Deku as a nickname."

"Ah so you're Midoriya?" Why was the man raising his voice? "So you're the one Asano _warned _me about!"

Oh. So _that _was this guys game? Humiliation and subjugation played hand in hand. He was going to be a nasty prick for sure.

Well, there was nothing to do then to give back what he was given. If Asano had 'warned' Takaoka about him there was no use pretending he didn't smell his bullshit right away. If anything it'd make the guy more suspicious of him.

"Not quite sure what you mean sir."

He laughed, "No need to pretend kid! Asano already told me about your lack of respect for authority. I'm a different kind of teacher you see, I prefer to see my classes as a family!"

Against his will he was wrenched into a side hug by the agent and the sheer disgust and discomfort that rocked up his spine because this vile, fake man was _trapping him oh kami he couldn't escape without causing a scene what did he do- _

"Like I said, we're family now! Trust 'Daddy' kids and leave everything to me!"

And with that he was finally being released from the hug and he felt like he was going to wretch but kept it contained, simply sitting there numb as Takaoka pulled himself to his feet and began a speech about how happy he was to be teaching them all and giving them a run down of the next few weeks.

Something was horribly wrong with the man, mainly because Izuku had never reacted that way to physical contact, not even when Asano senior had on occasion grabbed him by the chin to force him to make eye contact he'd never felt that physically ill due to touch before.

If anything a side hug was a welcome thing, sure Todoroki and Uraraka didn't do it often but on the occasions they did it was a stress relief from him.

After all Yutto and Hokosaki (the giants that they were) had always made a habit of slinging their arms around him and pulling him to their sides when they'd been in 3-E, and Yutto even before that as the kendo student had been one of his closest friends since first year.

Physical contact outside of a fight shouldn't be used as a weapon, but somehow Takoka had weaponized it and without knowing what the guys quirk was the fact that mere touch made him ill and the guys apparent habit of vocally humiliating students did not bode well for Izuku or the other students.

-*-

Shouta had watched Takaoka as discretely as he can, the way the kids have seemed to subconsciously react to his presence is a major red flag on its own but the way that Karasuma is watching him in the staff room is enough to tell Shouta the guy can't be trusted.

"Is that all you've managed to teach the students in three months?!" Shouta keeps to the corner of the room and watches the way the bigger man's body acts - calculated, misdirecting. His body language and his tone don't match. "It would take a soldier in the army only a month to reach their level."

His kids have the benefit of the doubt here, as high schoolers and hero students they're physically more capable (though having seen some of the quirks in E-class Shouta is beginning to reassess that point) and the fact that they're only a week into basic training means Takaoka isn't dragging them.

But still.

These are junior high kids, you can't expect miracles no matter how potent an ability enhancing quirk is or how fiercely they apply themselves to their training. They're children.

Kami above, they're children training to be assassin's and here Shouta is helping teach these kids the necessary skills to kill a man and at the end of it all he'll either be dead or the potential blood of thousands will be on his hands; because by the end of this 'experiment' the government will have a _class _worth of teenage assassin's ripe for the picking.

He was already responsible for creating child soldiers, now he was creating child assassin's.

Shouta fucking hated his life.

"Don't compare them to career military troops. Don't forget, they're just regular junior high students." Karasuma doesn't seem to believe the last part of his argument either, as the word _'regular'_ is spoken with tremendous amounts of sarcasm, "If I had worked them harder, it would have interfered with their studies."

"**_Whatever_**." Takaoka doesn't give a damn about the students. It's clear to see despite his previous performance, "Its the future of the world that's at stake here you know!"

The agent pulls a photo out of his jacket and the fact its even there makes Shouta certain the guy has this whole exchange planned out in his head.

"Look Karasuma... what you need is some passion."

He turns the picture toward a them to show him smiling while a bunch of cadets stand to attention, the way they're posed though is unnatural. And when Shouta looks they _aren't_ stood to attention. It almost looks like their hands are bound behind them.

But it's too early to assume stuff like that, but still the pose is off and Shouta has handcuffed enough people to understand the posture their body takes on.

"A drill instructors gotta put his heart and soul impeaching! That's what makes his students learn... even if the training gets a little rough."

That's a euphemism of Shouta's ever heard one.

"Ready or not, Koro-sensei...

I'm gonna turn your students into top-notch assassin's a heck of a lot faster than karasuma!" And then the agent turns to him, same gaudy false smile resting on his face, "I'll also be taking over your class as well Aizawa, after all they're here for this relief effort of sorts! Don't worry their assassin training will translate over to heroics!"

With that Takaoka pats Karasuma on the shoulder and leaves, thankfully not putting his hands on him as he goes.

-*-

"That Takaoka guy seems super cool don't ya think?!"

Izuku doesn't attempt to hide his disgust as the 'Bakusquad', as they'd been affectionately called, rambled on about the greatness and the coolness of the wolf in sheep's clothing.

"Yeah but it wasn't manly for him to talk so loudly about Midoriya and whatever issue he and the head master have with each other! That stuffs personal."

Okay....so maybe Kirishima has a bit of sense in him.

-*-

"All present and accounted for?! Okay then... we'll be starting our new, conjoined and improved P.E. class today!"

They're all sat on the grass just apart from the training field and trusting his instincts Izuku had begrudgingly sat himself at the front of the crowd. 

Something tells him Takaoka is going to do something and every hero-complex part of him tells him he needs to be able to stop it when it does.

The smile is back as Takaoka continues to sell his military bootcamp scheme like its some kind of sales pitch for a holiday camp, "The training will be a little tough, but I'll reward you with more tasty treats afterwards!"

"That's just an excuse to beat sweets you self isn't it?"

"Yeah, come to think of it, I have grown a little chunky thanks to all these goodies... Oh! I just remembered," Takaoka's 'cutesy' face drops away, "You U.A. guys have got your own determination moto right? Well I think we as a group need to come up with out own personal cheer!"

Izuku doesn't see the point because most of 3-E have probably shouted 'Go beyond, plus ultra!' before just due to the coverage the sports festival gets. 

"When I say '1, 2, 3'... You all need to shout 'Victory!' And make a V-sign with your fingers." 

"Whoa... that's so dated. And a rip-off too."

"Shut up! It's not a rip-off, it's an homage!"

Having given up on listening to their new teacher prattle on Izuku settles for watching how the other members of staff are watching them like guardian hawks.

If his own intuition hadn't tipped him off, the way a world class assassin, a pro-hero, elite government agent and a super-being are all watching the joint class like they're awaiting the moment they need to swoop in and save them would have told him to be weary.

They aren't conspicuous enough though because everyone else seems complacent.

It doesn't help that eventually they all go indoors, Aizawa begrudgingly and it takes Karasuma hollering over for him for his sensei to relent.

"All right, listen up! There's a little change in your schedule now that the P.E. class had been reconfigured. I'd like you to pass this out to everyone."

A time-table starts to be handed out and as one of the first to get them Izuku is well aware of why everyone is losing their shit. Instead of the usual six periods, it's even extended to ten with all but sixteen lessons over a fifty six lesson week being training.

Monday to Friday there's a consecutive nine hours of training, even with his intense training with All Might he'd never done that much physical exertion consecutively on a regular basis. It'd permanently damage their growing and developing bodies if they did that much with no respite.

It'd be worse for 3-E.

"Are you kidding!?"

"Ten periods a day...?!"

"Training until nine o'clock at night!?"

His own class finally seemed to snap out of their daze, though Izuku himself couldn't find the words.

"This isn't healthy!? You can't expect us to fit this and everything else in!"

"I'm sorry Takaoka-san but this is highly unacceptable! Surely the head master can't of authorised this!"

"Of course I received permission from the headmaster. He said he was reluctantly compelled to allow it, since the safety of the world is at stake..." Izuku highly doubted Asano had 'reluctantly' agreed to anything that would see 3-E fail in their academic careers, "And if you can keep up with this curriculum your skills will improve exponentially. Lets start with-"

Maehara seemed to be the only one capable of processing everything quick enough and just as Izuku had finally let the words sink in the younger boy was on his feet shouting at Takaoka, an act in itself that was odd.

Maehara was a loud kid sure, but disrespect to a teacher was not his style.

"Um wait a minute this is impossible!" At Takaoka's 'cluelessness' he carried on, "Our grades will plummet if this is all the time we have left to study! That's why Asano-San allowed it!"

Well at least somebody else had caught wind of the head master's real stake in all this.

"We don't even have time to play! We can't do this!"

It all seemed to happen in slow motion and all Izuku could do was call out to his Kohai as Takaoka grabbed him by the back of his hair and slammed his knee full force into the fifteen year olds stomach.

The bastard dropped Maehara like he was a worthless sack of rotten vegetables before that 'smile' crawled back onto his face, "There's no such thing as can't . There's only will."

"I told you, didn't I? We're a family. And I'm your daddy, and kids do as father says!"

The next time Izuku realised he was doing anything he was mid-punch, his fist hurtling towards Takaoka's face without the use of his quirk.

Time sped up and his fist landed causing the man's head to snap to the right. The man kept his head turned and Izuku knew he'd ducked up, he'd acted in anger again - he'd overstepped and caused an issue he couldn't undo again.

But he refused to sit back and watch someone he saw as a friend, someone he saw as a younger sibling (like all his kohai's no matter how insufferable they all were), be attacked.

"I don't know what fucking daddy issues you've got Takaoka- or what kind of screwy home life you came from, but in a normal household parents don't attack their kids."

He expected it really, because what other response was he going to get from a guy who responded with ohysicak abuse to any kind of opposition, but that didn't mean he didn't stumble when he got a fist crashing into his face in return.

And another and it was only when the third punch was about to land did Izuku move, mind hazy and feet wobbly. He moved out of the way and felt blood gushing down from his nose.

"Asano warned me about you, as I've said, he neglected to inform me you were the type to get physical with your confrontations Midoriya."

Spitting out blood Izuku felt every nerve set alight in anger, "Yeah, because maybe I don't need to resort to violence as my only solution! But this time i did because I swear to Kami I'm not letting you hurt these kids."

He braced himself for a hit that never came, only to find the reason for it being Aizawa in front of him with Karasuma in front of him, in Takaoka's face admonishing him.


	11. Chapter 11

"Don't worry Karasuma, I'm going easy on the kid! Not only are they my precious 'family' but it's self defence. Everybody here can attest that Midoriya attacked _me _first."

Anger boiled away under his skin as Takaoka spoke and Izuku found himself still unsteady on his feet. "Midoriya, how many fingers am I holding up?" Blinking furiously he tried to focus on Aizawa's hand.

It took a few seconds of blinking and trying to distinguish where one hazy appendage ended and one began but finally he forced out the answer he thought was correct.

"Three."

His jaw ached as he spoke and that a long with the metallic taste in his mouth and the wet running down his face Izuku guessed he'd probably bitten his tongue and/or gotten a bloodied nose from the two punches he let hit him.

The experience was surreal.

Izuku hadn't been in a proper fight without quirks since he'd been in 3-E, and even then it had always been against other thirds years (or other junior high kids in general, but a lot of younger kids weren't willing to get into fights with a third year from _that _E-Class), he'd been unprepared and acting on pure instinct.

It hadn't occurred to him that Takaoka, the trained military drill sergeant, would hit him back immediately. If anything Izuku had been counting on him being stunned for a few seconds to allow his brain to think up a follow up to 'hit the bastard and hope for the best'.

Seriously, he hadn't even used his quirk! If he had, with the control he had now, Izuku could of _**probably **_knocked him out without taking his head off his shoulders.

Oh... now that sounded like a nice idea.

"You're sure it's three?" The concern in Aizawa's voice brought him back to the present and realised he'd probably just been staring at his teachers hand for a few seconds.

"Yes I'm sure it's three sensei, I'm not concussed!"

Aizawa's expression changed by a fractional amount that Izuku knew meant he was relieved. So even if the floor could give out under him at any moment at least he knew his chance of a concussion had gone down. 

"They are not your family, they our my students -_** all of them**__**.**_"

Looking over to where Koro-sensei was stood with one of his hands (tentacle...?) on Takaoka's shoulder he felt that feeling of wrongness build up again with the smile that crawled on the bastard face.

"You got a problem with that monster? Aizawa?"

The agent called out his sensei who turned moved forward towards him - putting himself between Takaoka and the students, because of course his sensei would protect a bunch of kids he didn't technically have to care about. Raises was a true hero and a damn good teacher.

"As their new P.E. teacher I have complete control over their physical education. And punishment is well within the grounds of educational tools." Distantly Izuku recognized Nagisa handing him a tissue and coaking him to tilt his head back, "I'm entrusted with training assassins in a very short time to be capable of killing you. It's to be expected that my disciplinary methods are a bit _harsh_, what are you going to do about it?"

Izuku's bleeding nose was a prominent complaint against the euphemism of 'harsh'.

"Besides, who are you to complain about overtly harsh punishment Aizawa? If I remember right your idea of punishment is forcing the students to prove they're worthy of being in your class or face expulsion?" Takaoka's cynical laugh made his skin crawl, "What kind of mental issues do ya think that gives kids?"

"Not nearly as many as physically beating them under the pretence of fatherhood bastard." Was what Izuku wanted to say, but with the blood in his mouth and his tilted back head it came out slurred.

"Senpai, he'll hit you again if you don't lower the volume." Side-eyeing Nagisa he relented, the fear (not for himself but for him) in his kohai's eyes was enough to have him backing down.

"So what are you going to do about it? Will you attack another teacher who hasn't done anything to you... just because he has slightly different views on pedagogy?"

The air itself grew heavy as the tension built up around Koro-sensei and Takaoka.

"Weakness number ten, he cares tremendously about how his students view him." Nagisa's voice was so quiet Izuku nearly missed it.

"What's to stop me from stopping you Takaoka?"

His sender's voice held so much conviction, so much anger that was hidden in the Aizawa-way that it scared him. Was this Aizawa's equivalent of bloodlust?

"I out-rank you Aizawa, and without that rat of yours to back you up your powerless. I'll put this a way a guy who works with his quirk will understand, in this situation you're the equivalent of quirkless. Useless, incapable do I need to go on?"

Idiot's blood boiled in his veins, **_how dare he!? How dare he say that!? Izuku was going to rip that filthy tongue from his fucking mouth and-_**

"We've reached a misunderstanding Takaoka, because if you think even without my quirk to back me up - meaning I'm as you put it essentially quirkless- I'm any lesser a person you're wrong." The next few words were spat out, "At least I'm not using my quirk on children to make them subservient to me."

-*-

"Karasuma, what the actual hell are you doing letting that monster do what the hell he wants?!"

Shouta was beginning to think he should of just handed 1-A over to Hizashi like the man had been begging him to since be fire the school year started, his loud mouth friend would have no issue with blasting Takaoka's eardrums out then and there, instead Shouta was stuck here, unable to do anything.

If he ever got an audience with the head master he was going to wring his neck with his capture weapon, not only for what he'd done to Midoriya, and possibly every other student he'd considered 'gifted' enough but also for letting the monster that was Takaoka into his school.

It was one thing to be a sadist, it was another entirely to be an egotistical man child sadist who used his quirk on kids.

And then it was a whole other ball game to undermine the qurikless especially while being completely aware that a portion of your students were quirkless.

That made his rage worse, the bloodlust that had radiated off of Midoriya had been terrifying, only drowned out by that of Koro-sensei himself. 

Shouta had had to watch as fifteen year olds flinched and turned away because they were ashamed of something they could not control, of something that made them _unique_, that made them (and maybe Shouta was an old world philosopher) truly human.

"Aizawa is correct Karasuma, at this rate he's going to ware the students out in no time... even the U.A. students seem to be flaking." At the yellow monstrosities words Shouta turned his attention to his kids.

Todoroki and Bakugou were going strong, expected of his outlier students (Shouta had already categorised and started writing a report to the Hero Commission upon seeing Todoroki's response to Midoriya's 'parents don't hit their kid's' comment and was already looking into a home visit for the Bakugou's for much the same reaction) Iida and the slightly more athletic of his group were also keeping up.

The falling behind came from his average students, who in country wide standards were far from average. They were keeping up sure, but the signs of exhaustion were creeping on them.

Midoriya would of been a part of the outliers - seriously what had All Might had the kid doing in his training? Nothing seemed to slow him down- but he seemed to be intentionally keeping pace with his kohai's.

Whether it was for emotional support or simply to puss Takaoka off in any way he could was yet to be established.

More than likely the problem child was doing it for a bit of both.

"As a super-organism such as myself it would be easy to crush him, but he's right. He's not within my purview. I believe I speak for both myself and Aizawa when I say this but personally I think he's wrong."

Shouta turned back to his new co-workers, spotting the way Jelavich was watching Takaoka. The woman thought no one was looking at her and was baring every emotion on her face.

It was... intense.

Anger, pain, unbridled hatred, childish fear... whatever had caused the femme fatale to get to this point in her life had involved someone like Takaoka. 

He wondered how much self-control was going into not wringing the bastard neck. Shouta knew for himself it was every ounce.

"Thats why I want you, as a fellow P.E. teacher to be the one to reject him Karasuma."

Like a switch had been flipped Koro-sensei and Jelavich turned from stoic steadfast characters into blotchy seventeen year old teenagers - honestly they reminded him of Hisashi and Nemuri and not in the roles people would generally expect.

"For one, just look at this schedule! There's no time for me to play with the students after school!"

"That's right! And I won't be able to get the boys to carry my shopping bags for me!!"

"All the teachers here are nuts..."

"Typical..." he muttered to himself, "I escaped one group of idiots in exchange for another - more deadly- group of idiots."

-*-

"You've got to be kidding..."

"Three hundred squats on the first day! We're all gonna die!"

"Mr.Karasuma..."

Izuku fought through the threat of toppling over due to lack of balance and tried to keep up with his underclassmen, it seemed to help them keep time and he didn't care if he ended up working past when the rest of his class was done, it pissed off Takaoka.

"Hey! Since when is Karasuma part of our family?" His head snapped up towards Takaoka's voice and the action finally let gravity win and he started to topple, causing disruption amount the third years around him, "Children who don't respect their father's are punished."

There was a morbid silence where everyone waited for the sound of another body hitting the ground which was deftly destroyed by Karasuma's cold command of a voice, "That's enough! Stop bullying the students. If you want to fight, pick on someone your own size!"

Getting steady on his feet again with the help of Chiba and Sugino he watched in awe as Karasuma held Takaoka's fist in much the same way he had Bakugou's. In fact, as the agent spoke you could see his grip increasing on the captured wrist.

All top quickly the illusion of liberation was broke by the smug grin that crawled and died on Takaoka's face as he snagged his wrist free.

"I told you, didn't I Karasuma? This isn't about violence. It's about education. I have no intention of opposing you with violence." Takaoka was calm as he walked over to his abandoned gym bag, disgusting left next to the half empty cake boxes the bastard had brought from yesterday as an incentive' for them.

"If you want to fight we'll do it as teachers, you still haven't accepted me have you? As your father I'm not pleased." He pulled an anti-sensei knife out of his jacket and tensed his finger against it before letting it bounce, "So how about this... we'll decide who's right with this!!"

"A...knife?!"

'_It can't be that easy...._' Izuku swallowed, _'He can't be insinuating what I think he is without a catch. Even if he's more trained he's never seen this class move before, never seen them wield a blade in combat. He's too disadvantaged-'_

"Karasuma choose the student you've trained the best. If that kid can strike me with this knife just once I'll accept that you're a better instructor than me." A sly, smug little grin appeared as Takaoka puppeteers being stabbed, "And if by some miracle that happens... you can have your class back too, and I'll leave. And when a man says something, he means it."

Around him a morbid excited air grew and out of the corner of his eye he spotted 1-A inching their way closer, having previously distanced themselves at the start of the exercise.

"But... of course on the other hand, if I win, you lost the right to criticise me- forever. Oh, and you won't be using _this _knife." 

And with that he revealed his trump card, pulling out a real combat knife, jagged edge and everything. He held the knife in his grip so casually and swung it as the deadly tool it was in adjacent to his hand movements you would believe it to be a prop but it was obviously very real.

"If you're gonna try to kill a person you should use a real weapon."

Izuku swore the world went silent for a few seconds, everyone forgot to breath and the universe held its breath waiting for the 'sike!' that would never arrive.

"Stop it! They've haven't been trained to kill people! They aren't prepared for it! A real knife raises the stakes too high!"

"Don't worry. Even if they stop short just before they strike me, I'll acknowledge it as a legitimate hit." The crazy psycho licked the blade in his grip and Izuku forced himself to brace his own weight before subconsciously sticking the two that had been supporting him behind him. "I'll be empty handed, so the odds are on your side."

"C'mon Karasuma! Chose a student! If you don't, I win! And you will bow down to me!"

"He's a damn megalomaniac..." Kaminari stepped up beside him, electric discharge dancing along his skin, "What the fuck is this guy..."

"You either turn your back on these students or band them over to me as a sacrifice... either way you're an awful teacher! Har har har!" With that Takaoka threw the knife to the ground at Karasuma's feet.

Karasuma stood there for a few seconds, a statue before them, but then he suddenly moved awakening from his decision making and started walking with purpose towards their congregation of students.

There was only one student he could see being picked.

_'Nagisa's bloodlust is so well contained and unexpected that Takaoka won't have a clue what's hit him. Plus he's had experience holding a real knife before when he helped Yutto and I smuggle the wakizashi onto school grounds for practice... though Karasuma wouldn't know that.' _

Izuku felt a smug grin jump to his lips when the agent stopped in front of the blue haired boy, _'What Karasuma will know however is that Nagisa is a snake in the grass... Sugino said Nagisa kept his suicide bomber attempt hidden up until he blew himself up, that level of composure mixed with Nagisa's bloodlust? It's a ticking time bomb and Takaoka's just lit the damn fuse.'_

_"_Nagisa... do you feel up to it?"

As soon as the words left the agent murmurs of shock rippled through the group, heavily from his friends, "Why the Hell is he giving him a knife?? Just swallow your damn pride man, it isn't ideal but we'll just have to learn to deal..."

"If I have to choose one person, it's you. But before you give me your answer hear me out." Karasuma's tone changed, "As a government official requesting all of you to perform an assassination... I regard you as professionals like myself."

Once again the universe held its breath.

"And as a professional the least I can do is ensure that you continue to have a normal life as a student. So don't feel pressure to take this knife. If you don't I'll just ask Takaoka to honour that request for me."

"Heh heh heh Karasuma... I'll consider it if you kneel down for me!"

It seemed those words were the deciding factor for Nagisa because the boy took the blade with nothing more than a nod and "I'll do it." 

Izuku watched as the younger boy walked to be a few meters away from Takaoka and bit down on the knife and began stretching.

"My my... you must be going blind, Karasuma. To choose a quirkless shrimp like this out of all the students!"

"Nagisa... Takaoka is very experienced with bare-handed self-defence combat against knives. You'll have to swing the knife with all your might to even scratch him."

"Got it."

"Hey... do you think Nqgisa can actually strike him with the knife?"

"No way... we know how hard it is to do that from training with Mr.Karasuma... on top of that he'll never be able to do it with a real knife..."

Izuku couldn't stop the chuckle that left him, "Senpai?"

"For intelligent kids you've got pretty bad perception." At the confused looks he got from all sides he continued, "Just watch and see. Nagisa was the perfect choose for this."

"Bring it on!"

Everyone watched in silence and for a few seconds Izuku worried if he'd put too much faith in Nagisa before relief flooded him as he watched the younger teen go lax.

His shoulders relaxed, the knife lay idle in his hand as he game a small smile and began strolling up to the agent. Everything was perfect and serine, it was like Nagisa didn't even have the knife in his hand. Eventually Nagisa bumped into Takaoka's chest and everything changed in a heartbeat.

The once prone knife was sent flying up towards Takaoka's neck, on course to slice his throat open if he didn't move, and move he did, tipping himself backwards awkwardly due to the awkward angle created by the close proximity.

Izuku can't make out exactly what Nagisa does next but he sees the two of them hit the floor and Nagisa quickening himself around to Takaoka's back, securing his place by locking his legs around his front from behind and digging the razor side of the blade into his neck before covering up his eyes.

The mental image of a snake constricting its prey and flashing its fangs speeds through his brain and roots itself in place.

"Gotcha." 

"Mr. Karasuma...? Do I have to actually cut him with the blade?"

The lost expression of Nagisa's face causes another round of laughter to leave Izuku unbidden as everyone else sees what was right in front of them.

Did they really think a normal person did what Nagisa did on the daily? 


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A filler chapter? Yes  
An introduction to Mido's 3-E? Also yes  
Dialogue heavy? Most certainly.
> 
> You guys have @namufics to thanks for the idea of a meet up/reunion of Midoriya's E-class.
> 
> BTW @namufics , I just want to say thanks for taking the time to read most of my current projects on AO3, I don't know if you just like a wide variety of AU's or if you like my writing specifically but I see you on most of my fics and its support like yours that really motivates me to keep writing! So thanks again and I hope you enjoy the chapter!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also hope you guys are all staying safe.
> 
> I really don't have an excuse for not updating this for such a long time, but I just didn't feel motivated and there's really no point writing a chapter without motivation and pushing out subpar content when you can wait a little bit and actually write something half decent.
> 
> That's my philosophy at least.

They're all more than a bit emotionally compromised after Takaoka's beat down, it didn't help when the bastard tried to attack them again only to be downed twice more. Once by Karasuma and then by Asano senior.

Despite not being on the receiving end of the head master's bloodlust it still makes Izuku's skin crawl and suddenly his skin feels three sizes too small. 

It's an unfortunate side effect of being near the bug-like bloodlust. 

He hated it but at this point he doesn't have much of a choice. The damage (long ago and recently) has already been inflicted and as far as Izuku knew there wasn't a free lance time traveller in the area.

Because of the clusterfuck that had been the school day Aizawa had accompanied them back to the inn, hovering like a mother hen, and near point blank refused to let Izuku leave the inn. It was agitating beyond belief that he couldn't leave, but his boredom was quelled when his phone pinged.

Like him most of his class had commandeered the reception area, staking the couches and love seats out for themselves, it's because of this that Sero gets a good look at his screen and sees the horrendous amount of emoji's (specifically heart ones because Hana liked to make sure everyone knew how lovable she was) next to Hana's name and the 'flirty' text she's sent him.

Flirting for Hana was as easy as breathing, if he didn't get called Babe at least _once _in a conversation he knew she wasn't feeling alright.

'_How are you doing without me, gorgeous?'_

It's not exactly the kind of text you can dismiss to others without context, context he doesn't feel particularly inclined to share as Sero stares at him with something he's almost ballsy enough to say is jealousy.

"You have a girlfriend!?"

Ouch. Did the boy have to be so loud? Now people are looking at them and Izuku is fairly sure his headache just increased. Fucking possibly-possibly not concussions.

Izuku is sure this is exactly what people mean when they say theirs stuck between a rock and a hard place. He can't say yes, because that's lying and rude seeing as Hana already has a girlfriend but he also can't just outright say no because people won't believe him and in all honesty Izuku doesn't really want to deal with all the semantics and stuff.

"She's a lesbian Sero."

There. Short, simple and to the point. No 'but this' nonsense, no 'I don't think you're saying everything' bullshit. Plain and simple, Hana literally can't be his girlfriend fuck you and good night.

The words rip themselves from his mouth before his brain can even process how _fucking stupid _he is for getting out of bed this morning.

Kami he's _so _tired of today already.

An awkward silence settles over the two of them plus the others that were listening in. 

"Oh I, that's... why is she flirting with you then?"

It's not accusatory, simply curious and he figures he can indulge his classmates a little bit.

"Hana-chan flirts as easily as she breaths. In her words 'everyone is beautiful and I'm just letting them know' or whatever that means."

The awkward silence persisted for a few more moments before Tsuyu broke it, her flat voice gratting on Izuku's frazzled nerves slightly, "Midoriya, kero, you've been acting differently since we arrived here. Why is that?"

Many things fly through his mind at the question, the thoughts predominantly sound like Karma and so he ignores those ones - his kohai's insistent teasing be damned _Izuku was not picking fights anymore!_ \- and instead focus on the suggested responses that sound like his mother who's only slightly less vindictive than the red headed devil he begrudgingly cares for.

"You heard Meahara when he spoke out against the time table right?"

Tsuyu nods and he thinks over his words, deciding if he's really going to open this particular can of worms, "What did you think about his comment, in regard to Asano senior?"

"_"__Our grades will plummet if this is all the time we have left to study! That's why Asano-San allowed it!" _that's what he said wasn't it?" He nods and watches as Tsuyu leans back onto the couch across from him, "I think given the aura he gives off he probably does much worse than purposefully disadvantage a class."

He lets out a snort that is most definitely not appropriate and the raised eyebrows around him tell him that well enough.

"But I'm not in a position to judge," the frog girl shrugs, "After all Aizawa sensei has some unique-"

"Don't. Ever. Suggest sensei and that _monster _are even remotely alike!" His words are venomous and angry and tired but he can't help it.

Asano senior was a disgrace of a human, and Aizawa sensei whilst maybe not having the best teaching methods genuinely cared for all of them and would protect them should it ever come to it.

You couldn't find two people more diametrically opposed.

Ringing sliced through the tension and his eyes cut down to where his phone was displaying Yutto's face. Shooting a glance around the lobby he turned sharply on his heel and stalked his way to his room answering the phone on the way.

"Hey Yutto, what's up? You don't usually phone."

The lanky boy gave a laugh on the other end of the line but it wasn't very convincing. Izuku slouched against his rooms door after he closed it.

"The empath bond was flaring again, just like it was after you were caught up in Hosu," he'd forgotten that a part of Yutto's telepathic abilities allowed him to set up empathetic links between himself and others, "I was in a tournament yesterday so I couldn't phone then, but dude - it spiked like _really _badly. What happened?"

"A lot."

When his friend laughed it sounded much more genuine, and much more like his best friend.

"Yeah I could tell that much bud."

Scratching at his head he winced when his head started pulsing again.

"Izuku? You still there?"

"Yeah... Yeah I think I just barely missed getting a concussion, my heads gonna hurt for awhile."

Normally that kind of statement would have sent someone into a spiral of questions or some form of panic but Yutto gave a long suffering sigh, "Hana-chan and I leave you alone for less than a full year and you're already back to picking fights."

"I didn't start this one." His defence was weak and even he knew it, "My hero class is doing some stupid case study at our _lovely _junior high," Yutto let out what sounded like a curse, "And for the past few days 3-E have had a new P.E. teacher. He's like Asano, except instead of mentally this guy was physical."

"Shit." Izuku had to close his eyes as the pain got worse and he focused on the other boys voice, "Dude... The guy _hit you _didn't he!? And let me guess Asano's letting him come back after the weekend like everything's normal!?"

Despite the fear all his ex-classmates and his still close friends (who were all the same people really) had for Asano senior, the contempt they all felt for him oftentimes outweighed the fear.

It hadn't been unusual for Yutto to sometimes _accidentally _focus a shit tonne of telepathic energy Asano's way when he'd be up on the mountain - not that the headmaster could prove it.

"Wait a second... Izuku you didnt!" Unaware of what he was supposed to of done he kept quiet, "Bud, don't tell me you moved between the teacher and one of the current 3-E! I get that everyone in the younger years loved you but you can't keep-"

"Yu." The nickname stopped the mother henning momentarily, "I threw the first punch and then was stupid enough to not get out of the way immediately. The bastard made Maehara throw up, I couldn't just - _just stand there!_"

Yutto's tone softened and, despite seconds prior being an overprotective friend, his best friend gave him some encouragement.

"Well at least you're still a rebel with a cause, right? But you won't be able to just jump in the way every time."

"I'm aware," he couldn't help but sigh, "The weirdest part was that Asano actually fired the guy. Like, on the spot."

"..."

"Yu?"

A few seconds passed, those seconds stretched into a minute and finally be got a verbal response, "You're not pulling my leg? He actually got rid of someone? Wow."

They chat for a little bot longer before Yutto brings the conversation back around, "Wait, I just realised. If you were with E-Class that means you're back with Yukimura-sensei right?"

It pains him to think of his deceased sensei and Yutto doesn't seem to notice his emotional shift, probably putting it down to emotionally exhaustion, "Is she still wearing those stupid jumpers? Ooh, was she wearing the gummy bear one we bought her as a thank you gift?"

Izuku doesn't know how to say what needs to be said.

"Izuku? I'm... is something wrong the link is all over the place-"

"Sensei is dead." There he said it, "Yukimura-sensei died earlier this year in an extracurricular science accident."

The phone line is silent before he hears a hitch in Yutto's throat as the information sinks in.

"We're setting up a class meeting." The kendo students words are said like law and Izuku can't find a way to refute him, "This sunday at the old campus. I'll- I'll let the others at my school know now and we'll... is it insensitive to bring this up over a group chat?!"

For someone supposed to be attuned to emotions Yutto was always bad at what was appropriate and what wasn't.

"A video chat would be better. It's... it's not as impersonal that way."


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm not just pulling random names out of a hat I promise, see of these interactions would never have seemed possible at this point in Canon, but I'm saying they were because it's a Canon fact that Hara and Yoshida are childhood friends and while I love AssClass, the fact we didn't get Hara side eyeing Yoshida and dragging him by the ear AT LEAST once is a crime.
> 
> This chapter doesn't have a title but if it did it would most likely be:
> 
> 'Unrealistic because who the fuck doesn't have their phone on silent??'
> 
> Or
> 
> 'Consistent characterization for one character in different fics? Less likely than you'd think-'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, because I'm writing my Kumicho series so often now it's so weird and hard not to write thre characters given names! The amount of times I wanted to write Denki was ridiculous.
> 
> I mean I could get away with it a little bit because it's a canonical fact the girls all call each other by their first names in BNHA but like I wanna call everyone by their first name from Izuku's perspective, then I remember this is following Canon relationships and they're all still pretty detached from each other aside from groups and I forgot how many liberties I took with friendships!

The weekend is.. weird. 

Aizawa makes it a point to encourage them to go out and explore the area near the inn, which Izuku is able to get put of due to knowing the town around Kunugiowka like the back of his hand, but also because he has to makes plans with Koro-sensei and Karasuma.

He doesn't know if 3E are allowed on the mountain on the weekend to try and perform assassination attempts, though he doubts they're at the level where anyone is going at it alone regularly.

But if they are Izuku needs to know because the last thing he wants to happen is _his _3E turning up to commemorate their dead sensei only to find the current E-class trying to kill theirs.

Izuku can only imagine the emotional mess that would be, not to mention the government backlash he'd get called down upon him for getting nearly nineteen other teenagers in the know.

Aizawa would probably have his head because of it.

Because he gets out of 'group bonding and exploration' it means he doesn't have to be involved in the apparent near brawl that went down between Bakugou and Terasaka at the arcade.

There's only so many times Izuku can get Terasaka out of a situation before he decides to let him learn by getting his ass handed to him. Bakugou had seemed on edge every time Izuku had been around him recently so butting heads with the kid who was probably immune to his quirk was a stress relief more than likely.

Still, it's funny.

Or at least, he finds it funny when Yoshida explains it to him and Hara when he stumbles upon them in a small cafe after his meeting with Karasuma.

"And then Terasaka just turned to 'Matsu and said 'I'm about to kill him, tell me if senpai turns up.'"

Izuku can't help but chuckle and Hara shakes her head in a despondent manner while sighing at the other boys exaggerated motions.

"You know senpai," originally he'd been worried he'd inadvertently gate crashed a secret date, but the third years had been quick to correct him and explain it was just a childhood friends catch up, " the girls and I have been wondering, how did you get Terasaka to respect you?"

Hara sets down her cupcake and leans forward in her seat, interest clear in her expression. Yoshida has a similar, albeit downplayed, expression on his face. The teen runs a hand through his hair.

"It wasn't anything special, I just didn't take his bullshit."

"Seriously?" The disappointment is clear in both their voices, "Wow, way to be anticlimactic."

"What!? What do you want me to say? I told him to take out the stick shoved up his ass and told him where he could put his attitude after he tried to threaten me!?"

"Yes!" Hara points at him, "See that's _much _more interesting! Your original description gave us nothing to work with."

"Sumire you've been hanging around with Fuwa too long - you're acting like senpai should have given you a blurb."

Hara laughed, rubbing the back of her head and Izuku casually checked his phone to see if Yutto had gotten everyone's replies yet - Izuku had a few nasty bruises on his face from Takaoka and Yutto had pointed out that maybe seeing Izuku beaten up and also being told their beloved sensei was dead simultaneously might not be the best move - there wasn't any updates from Yutto but Hana had dropped him a new text.

"At least you aren't attempting to break a non-existent fourth wall." Izuku glanced up from his phone to see Hara making faces at the far off wall just to her left.

"Is...Sumire you are _not _pretending to look at a camera like you're on the office!"

Izuku gave a sigh, looking away and shaking his own head at another imaginary camera, muttering 'under his breath' about how ungrateful his kohai's were.

"Not you too senapi!"

Like the night before the ringing of his phone interrupted conversation and Izuku went to give it nothing more than a cursory glance before freezing at the contact name.

"I have to take this, give me a second?"

His kohai gave him a concerned that he waved off before he stood and exited the cafe, answer the phone when he was sure the younger teens couldn't hear him or attempt to lip read him.

"You're the last person I expected to call me -"

"Is it true the new teacher assaulted students?" At the abrupt question Izuku floundered for words, "Well, is it!?"

Running a hand through his hair he finally answered, giving a glance around the near empty back street to see if he could spot his caller. When he couldn't he decided to answer.

"Yeah, he did, though I don't get why you care - you've never cared about the treatment of E-class before."

-*-

Ochako finds herself, like everybody else, uneasy as the weekend rolls in. Midoriya's outburst had shaken all of them and everyone had seemed to take a metaphorical step back and revaluation the green haired boy.

Since they'd turned up at kungiowka her friend had been acting differently. 

At the end of the day it was still Deku, he was still kind, willing and forever absorbed in his notebooks but Ochako had noticed he seemed... rougher around the edges?

Like he was trying to act like a delinquent without full out being one - which somehow worked because the way the freckled teen carried himself suggested that you didn't want to try his temper.

...Not to mention the way the Terasaka kid backed down immediately suggested that even those with the delinquent moniker respected him; which was really unusual because Ochako never would have pegged Deku as one to go around scaring delinquents.

Sure her friend could be scary when he wanted to be, the determination in his eyes in training sessions spoke volumes about the intensity he held in his small yet bulked up frame.

But still, she couldn't see a guy like Terasaka giving out respect to someone any other way and through being intimidated by them.

Or may he that was just her experience with a similar kid in her old neighbourhood but who could possibly say?

"Ochako, I think I should apologize to Midoriya... kero."

Breaking from her thoughts she turned to where Tsu was perched in the cafe booth with her. Across from them Todoroki and Iida were engaged in some kind of debate about the credibility of calling Todoroki a 'hand crusher'.

"...Yeah. I get what you were saying, about having no room to judge, but that Takaoka guy was on a whole other level."

The frog-like girl nodded, a hand coming up to scratch at her chin, "When I asked about his behaviour kero, it didn't come off as rude did it?"

"A little bit," she admitted, "But I'm sure Deku knows you just say things as you see them. If you explain _why _you asked and that you didn't mean to be rude I'm sure he'd forgive you."

"I guess..."

Her phone ringing grabs her attention and crates a break in the boys conversation. "Mina? What's she calling for?"

Answering the phone Ochako has to pull it away from her for fear of losing an ear drum.

"Have you guys seen Midori!? An old schoolmate showed up and ahh!"

She can't take much from Mina's squealing, it could mean plenty of things; one, she thinks this friend is attractive, two she thinks the fact he's turned up to see Deku is cute or three, she thinks they're adorable in a non-attractive aesthetics way.

You could never tell with Mina.

"I haven't seen Deku since breakfast, why is he not answering his phone?"

Her friends shoot her a concerned look and she waves them off, for once they don't need to worry about the green haired boy, and she realises how quiet Mina's gotten.

"Mina?"

"I completely forgot I had his phone number okay bye!" The last three words slur together and she only realises the call has ended when she hears the monotonous beep. 

Pulling the phone away she looks at it for a few seconds before sighing, "She and Kaminari are _so_ alike."

-*-

Cutting his conversation with his kohai's short Izuku makes sure to get to the hotel as quickly as possible.

It wasn't often that Ashido phoned him, most of the time they only really interacted in person or on the class group chat, but when she did it was usually for 'Ashido emergencies' as he'd taken to calling them.

One time she'd dragged him half way around Mufasta to prove to some junior high friends that she knew someone who could lift three people simultaneously on one arm.

Then there was the time she'd gotten stuck in a hole of her own accidental making at the skatepark and because he was named Deku in her phone he was a the top of the contacts and seeing as she needed a quick out she wasn't complaining about who came and got her.

Suffice it to say Ashido emergencies were funny, confusing and something to tell people about during an ice breaker.

When he does get to the hotel he expects to find something along the lines of Kaminari stuck to the ceiling and hotel staff stood there contemplating why exactly they let U.A. students stay in their establishment.

What he wasn't expecting was to find Yutto sat on a couch in the hotel lobby, being the teenage delinquent looking heartthrob everyone always said he was but that the boy vehemently denied being.

Izuku swore he could feel sweat beading at his forehead in exasperation.

Making his way further into the lobby Izuku couldn't help but shake his head as Yutto did his best to give answers while maintaining a semblance of his cold indifference.

The act was mainly a byproduct of years of accidentally hearing everyone's thoughts and so knowing everything about them - leading to awkward encounters and an agitated Yutto.

Having a blank canvas for a face meant that others didn't know Yutto was judging them near twenty four seven and that he didn't give anything away when he was purposefully going through someone's head.

Right now his classmates were huddled around the couch his best friend was on, aweing at him like the brunette was some hot new commodity.

Deciding to take pity on his friend he shouted over to the boy, "Oi! Yutto what the Hell are you doing here!?"

Which was a genuine question because he was under the impression everyone was turning up tomorrow. Izuku just barely resisted the urge to survey the room for anymore unexpected friends.

Yutto sprang up from the couch, a fake snarl on his lips, "Well! You never call, never write and you never visit! Do the kids and I mean nothing to you!?"

"You got it in one!"

They made their way over to each other and Izuku can't help but give a shriek of laughter when Yutto pulls him in for a hug, rubbing his knuckles into the top of his head all the while.

"You little shit! First time you see me in person in months and you hit me with that delinquent act of yours!? I'm appalled, wait till I tell Hana-chan."

"No! Yu don't tell Hana-chan! She's scary!" More laughter was ripped from him and Izuku pulled back from the hug, smile wide on his face, and punched his best friend in the shoulder, "Seriously please don't tell Hana she'll just have a go at me..."

Snatching the back of his neck Izuku watched as Yutto's happy expression vanished slowly but surely, "Yu?"

"You're wearing make-up."

"Huh?" Looking properly at his friend he found that some of the concealer Jiro had let him borrow had accidentally rubbed off on Yutto's black t-shirt, "Oh yeah, I couldn't go out in public with the bruises on display y'know?"

His friend stared down at him, Izuku wasn't sure if it was Yutto's contemplative silence or his 'I'm going through your head so I know what's a trigger right now' silence.

Eerily they were almost identical types of silence. The distinction was made when the ravenette sighed and grabbed a pack of tissues out of his pocket.

With a grave tone and expression that one would associate with great grief he was handed a solitary tissue and issued to remove the make-up.

"Take it off while your inside, you haven't worn make-up before you might be allergic to this brand."

Taking the tissue with exaggerated motions Izuku pretended not to hear his classmates saying how much like his big brother Yutto was acting. It was embarrassing, especially given he was the older out of the two of them by three months!

"..."

Standing in charged silence once the make-up was complete removed Izuku made sure to maintain eye contact even if it was just so that he didn't have to see Yutto's rapidly changing expression as he took the bruises in.

Finally Yutto spoke, "I've seen you walk around wkth worst, why are you covering this up?"

"I go to a prestigious school." An eyevrow was raised and he corrected himself, "I go to a prestigious school _that cares about the image I give it._"


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter bc I was dragging this bit on too long

Yutto stares for a few seconds, before proceeding to chuckle and shake his head. The taller boy uses his hand to shove Izuku's head down a little bit as he turns to face the watching class.

"Kami you're dense."

"Says you."To enact his revenge he pinches Yutto's side getting a high pitched squeak and a death glare out of the other boy, "It took you three months to realise Hana was gay. And you weren't even attracted to her so you can't even blame tunnel vision."

At the mention of their other best friend Yutto's goes slightly pink, more than likely thinking back to the day he'd found Hana on a date with her girlfriend and proceeded to freak out because he'd been convinced she was dating half their class in some kind of open relationship.

Apparently Hana was not only flirty with her words but apparently spent a lot of her free time in class complimenting people to herself. 

"Look, it isn't my fault Hana doesn't understand the phrase conventionally attractive," he's got him there, "and the only part that _is_ my fault is that I couldn't turn my quirk off."

Izuku can't help but grin as the delinquent heartthrob act is finally fully discarded to reveal a pouting teenage boy.

"So, Midori!" Turning to Ashido he sees the class still watching them like hawks but ignores it, "Who's your friend?"

Shooting a quizzical look his friends way he can't help but snort when the pout gets bigger on the others face, "You didn't introduce yourself?"

"I thought you'd only be a few minutes and then by the time you arrived it'd been too long for conversation to not be awkward..."

He laughs again, and the sombre feeling from his meeting with Karasuma earlier in the day is all but forgotten.

"Everyone, this is Ootori Yutto," he gestures to his friend, "Yutto this is class 1-A of U.A. high school."

At his friends name a ripple of shock goes through his classmates and he takes a few seconds to realise why.

"Ootori Yutto!? As in second place national junior high kendo championship Ootori Yutto!?" Sero sounds like a little kid on their birthday as he looks between him and Yutto.

Next to him his friend rubs the back of his neck with a sheepish smile, "I didn't realise hero students watched the national junior high kendo championships..."

"This is so cool...!" Sero is fanboying to himself while everyone else looks in wonder at his best friend.

Izuku feels really proud because that's his best friend!

Yutto's a really cool guy and considering how hard he worked for his coach to let him even compete with all the shit Kunugigowka were saying about him in junior high he deserves every bit of praise he gets.

"So you're an old friend of Midori's then?" Together they make their way over to the couches in the lobby and sit down everyone once more watching Yutto like a hawk hungry for every bit of information they can get.

"Yeah," Yutto slings his arm around his shoulder and Izuku doesn't even try and fight back as he's crushed into his friends side, "we've been best friends since first year junior high! Of course at the time we were in different classes..."

"You were smart enough to be in A-class you just focused too much on Kendo."

His words are muffled because obviously he's still pressed into Yutto but the black haired boy waves his words off, "Trust me Izu, I was _not _smart enough! Everyone but you had intelligence enhancing quirks!"

It's purely three years of practice in maintaining a blank look on his face that enables Izuku to keep his blush down, otherwise he's sure he'd have been as red as Kirishima's head.

"Exactly," he pulls himself out of the hug as he speaks and tugs on Yutto's cheek a little as he's talking mainly because he knows it annoys his friend, "if you'd put the effort in you'd of been A-class but no! Mr delinquent hotshot wanted to be a stoic pretty boy."

Yutto bats his hands away before rubbing his face where Izuku had pinched it. The taller boy grumbles and its hilarious because his 'big brother' aura has all but dissipated for the brat Izuku knows and loves. More than a few if his fights had been protecting Yutto, if anyone was a brat it was him.

"I don't have to sit here and listen to this," the brattiness comes into full force now, "you're the worst of us Mr. my job is to give everyone grey hair in junior high because I'm a delinquent!"

Admittedly Yutto is right, but he'd never _claimed _it was his job, it just kind of happened you know?

"Wait wait wait! Midori was a delinquent?!" 

Yutto shoots Izuku an incredulous look as if he can't believe that after greeting him with a delinquent act that his classmates were actually surprised at the revelation. Though Yutto probably expected it to not be a revelation.

"As if Deku could be a delinquent." Bakugou's words come out extremely rude and Izuku can only hope they weren't supposed to sound so insulting, "The nerd could have been blown over by paper before high school!"

A spark seems to go off between Yutto and Bakugou and it isn't the romantic kind, "Oh. You're _Bakugou _I should have known given the arrogance rolling off of you."

"You got a problem with me huh!?"

"Oh trust me Baku_hoe_," sometimes Izuku forgot that Yutto's delinquent act only worked so well because his friend could be intimidating when he wanted to be, "if your teacher wasn't here you'd know exactly how I felt."

Pulling himself from the couch he moved so he was stood between Yutto and Bakugou, sighing internally.

"Alright that's enough-"

"Izuku you can't be serious!" Yutto stood up as well, extra height causing him to unintentionally hover above him.

Anyone else would be intimidated, Yutto's eyes were dripping with contempt - contempt built up from hearing about Bakugou and the few times he'd seen Izuku in school holidays after the boys lackeys had gotten lucky and grabbed him before he could fight back - and his voice sounded like venom.

The events that had lead up to this contempt and venom had mainly been in the first two years, during third year he'd dropped all reservations and gave as good as he got.

"_I said that's **enough **Yutto."_ he hasn't used this particular tone of voice since junior high, when he really was acting like a delinquent and its so vastly different than his usual tone that it makes everyone in the room stiffen, "_You don't need to fight my battles for me so stand down._"

His best friend blinked at him like he'd grown an extra head but his mouth simple opened and closed before he nodded and sat back down.

-*-

The next day was sombre, everyone still seemed shocked at what they'd seen occur between him and Yutto but thankfully everyone seemed to pick up on the fact that what he and Yutto were going to do was serious.

Arriving at the mountain everyone is there, _everyone. _There isn't a single classmate missing and everyone had waited to journey up the mountain together.

It's clear they all experience the same feeling of wrongness he'd felt coming up again.

Never again had they been supposed to traverse the mountain path, water sliding down; screaming for joy and crying because _it was over they were finally free _was supposed to be the end of it. But now they're going up the mountain as a class one last time - for real this time- to honour the dead.

Ren had always joked that E-Class would kill one of them, but Izuku never expected to be going to an unofficial funeral.

When they reach the top they all just...stand there. Izuku hadn't really taken in the old school building since he'd started coming back to it. It was too full of memories that it was near painful to think about.

Now though... it looks sad. Not because of its slanted far walls or its lack of windows in some paces or the spotty roofing but it looks sad in its isolation.

Kunigigowka junior high stood tall and proud and victorious at the bottom of the mountain and its predecessor stood watch atop the hill, protecting those it would discard but unable to do anything from its elevated throne.

Hana grabs his hand in her right and uses her left to grab Yutto's. The three of them stand there hands interlinked on the front yard simply watching as the wind moves through the weeds.

Strangely it's silent as his class stands there, watching.

Ren with his volume quirk, Hana with her grace quirk, Yutto with his telepathy, Haruhi with her fire quirk, Junpei and his whistling and the rest of the class.

They stand in a semi circle simply watching as the wind causes the chimes Yukimura-sensei put up in front of the doors, and that Koro-sensei hadn't removed, to create a melancholy song.

Before long tears start to fall, his come silently but with others like Ren and Junpei it comes in loud unabashed sobs, while some of the girls like Haruhi, Kira, Kazana and Mika grab onto each other like life lines and let their cries shake their bodies to the foundation's.

All of them express their grief differently, but they share the grief all the same. After what feels like life times but is in actuality only half an hour their tears dry up, shoulders cease their movements and clawed fingers in fabric release their death grip. Everything hurts, everything is so raw and powerful and it _hurts so much_.

"You know... I hadn't really missed sensei that much," Ren's voice breaks the sacred silence and it feels taboo especially given the turbulent and rocky relationship he'd had with their sensei, "sure none of the high school teachers could match up, _or cared like she did or - or treated me like I mattered but I- I didn't miss her... and now she's **gone**_."

"I was still sending her e-mail weekly factoids, I thought she was just busy you know..." Kazana sounds broken and Izuku can't blame her, "for _months I've been e-mailing her just waiting for her to have free time and she's been _**dead**."

"When my class was told we were coming to Kunigigowka I was so excited.." Izuku feels the need to speak now and doesn't try and control the tremor in him that leads to his friends releasing their grip on each others hands to hold him in side hugs.

"I thought hey, I can - _I can show her she was right- I was on the way to being a hero and - and I'll never be able to show her how much she helped me." _The tears start to fall and they don't show signs of stopping, "_I wanted to be the kind of hero she was! I just wanted to show her that all her time and effort wasn't wasted and now I'll **never get the chance**._"


End file.
